


Born of Time and Memory: Part 1

by INeedMoreHadesBeforeISwoon



Series: Primordial Lore [5]
Category: Lore Olympus (Webcomic)
Genre: Children of Characters, Established Relationship, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, High Word Count, Including ERs from previous original works, Long-form, M/M, Many Kinks, Other, PLEASE READ THE OTHERS FIRST, Strange-form Intimacy, and a lot of them, just read it already, seriously, sorry but not, there's kinks, this is a third part, world-building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:54:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21966736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INeedMoreHadesBeforeISwoon/pseuds/INeedMoreHadesBeforeISwoon
Summary: Here begins the first part of Born of Time and Memory. This is the official Third Installment in the Primordial Lore Series. Hearts of Void was posted first, but technically comes AFTER the events that take place in this fic.YOU MUST HAVE READ EVERY WORD OF TITANS REBORN, AND THE SEQUEL SHADOWS AND TRUTHS, BEFORE YOU READ THIS FIC! I BEG YOU! PLEASE! I have 300k words leading up to everything that happens here. You must catch up. Please. I'm begging you.
Relationships: Erebus/Original Character, Hades/Persephone (Lore Olympus), Hephaestus/Original Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Primordial Lore [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1494668
Comments: 22
Kudos: 18





	1. Foreword: Summary, Glossary of Titan-speech (to-date) and Front-notes

First: Please forgive your Swoonie for not jumping right into the story. I wanted to make sure we had some house-keeping out of the way before you dive on in. 

Second: If you've come this far with me and the Titans in my Headspace: Thank you, so very ever much. I cannot tell you how much it means to me that you're still intrigued and willing to come along for our wild-ass long-ass ride.

If I had a yogurt for every heart-swooning moment your love has given me, I could satisfy every need of world-hunger.

Thank you. I don't have the words. 

Third: This fic installment COULD VERY WELL turn into the same length as Shadows and Truths. There's a lot for me to get to, and you need to know that it's all necessary. There are still loose ends to tie up, and more threads to unravel. More shadows to be brought to light, and more stars to come into being in reality. More grief and loss to heal from, and new happinesses to be discovered. You're in for another head-spinning long-ass fic, but I promise: 

It's all worth it.... You've come this far. Please don't turn back now.

Press on....

Fourth: I may be experimenting with some different writing techniques in this one, at least in terms of actual style. I have a few more characters to get into their heads now, and some of them require a little different tone, a little different choice in how I put this fic together. I beg you, bear with your Swoonie, but feel free to be HONEST with your comments. I love the love, but please let me know if something's coming out weird or incomprehensible. As always, I am my own beta for the most part, and I rely on my readers, you little ones, to give me feedback on how my headspace is translating over.

Fifth: Summary Time. Once again, do not proceed with this fic if you have not finished Titans Reborn and Shadows and Truths, in that order. You CAN go read Hearts of Void after S&T, if you like, but it's not necessary to begin reading this one....

So, summary: the highlights.

Hades and Persephone lost their youngest son, Melarebus (Arry) to reality a year ago. We pick up, with the first section of Born of Time and Memory, with Arry, now returned to Life in a new silver-dusted Void-merged-Primordial-constructed body, in the evening of his literal-18th birthday, the autumn equinox, one year after his body was killed and his Self absorbed into Erebus' own Self. Arry is the same, but also different: more, and also - perhaps - a little less than he used to be. At least he is alone in his own headspace now. Yay.

A few months after that, Erebus is mated to Ath-naa, in every way possible. They are Self-mates. Lovers. Husband and Wife. And Erebus received a wonderful wedding gift from his Queen, a night-club for him to manage as his own business. It's placed in the Underworld, and Erebus is excited to explore his wedding gift tonight, the winter solstice. Erebus merged his Self with Ath-naa's to bring Arry back. This was similar to how Gaia and Oranus created the little ones, the first Titans, so long ago, some 5000 years or more. Erebus loved those little ones as his own, but they are gone now, or almost gone. All that is left are memories that are somehow also soul-bound; the remnants of those little ones are held in spell-webs in Ath-naa's realm, the Island of stars in a sea of shadows, Arachne's Island. Ath-naa is still learning about her own gifts, but she is making great strides with the help of her advisor, Delarkes, who is also Erebus' oldest friend. Delarkes is a changeling, able to shift every aspect of their appearance, even gender, with a thought. Delarkes is invisible to Erebus' senses - Erebus can sense no Self in Delarkes, though other beings can. No one knows why....

Additionally, Erebus has discovered that he is not only gay as hell, and has been from the word go, but he is apparently some kind of Incubus. He was starving without ever knowing he was starving, for his entire existence, until the first time he spent some time with and made love to Hephaestus, the Cyclopes-forged constructed-being almost-god. From the moment Erebus swallowed down his Phae's ejaculate, Erebus was changed. Something woke in him, and he now relies on that source of Life-energy, along with normal food and drink - though those last are in much less quantity than he used to need them. On top of this, Erebus has also come to rely on psychic-aura Life-energy, sexual tension en masse, like what can be found in nightclubs. Hence, why his Queen gave him his own club as a wedding present. Not only can he be a part of something in a community now, but he will also never be hungry again - at least on that score. 

Erebus has also been reunited with the first being he was ever attracted to, the First Potamoi, called Tamoi, who had pined for Erebus as his own Self-mate for eons. Tamoi was broken, badly, in heart and soul, and is now beginning to heal with the love that Erebus can spare for him. Erebus needs his Queen, but Tamoi needs him in the same way. It's a tangled mess, but they're all working hard to make it work so everyone can heal and be happy. 

Erebus refers to both Phae and Tamoi as his lovers in addition to his Queen. And it seemed, at the wedding, that Phae was beginning to possibly feel something like love for Tamoi, though nothing has been said aloud.... Phae, until now, has been enjoying a friends-with-benefits only type of situation with Erebus: steady sex, no strings attached. Is that about to change...? Who can tell....?

Hades and Persephone's oldest daughter and her husband have a daughter, Void-touched and marked when Arry lost his physical body. Khimeria is chimeric, particolored in her mother's and father's wine-and-plum and Arry/Erebus' moon-white-and-silver. Khi began speaking Titan just a few weeks after she was born, and she is progressing quite rapidly, physically. At almost six months old, she's already eating soft foods, like the ubiquitous and well-loved yogurt, and sitting upright without support, for the most part. She loves her Uncle Arry, but has yet to be in a room with Arry and Erebus at the same time. 

Between Hades and Persephone's helicoptering over how much time their son should spend with the beings that technically got him killed and brought him back, things are little tense. However, it's only been a few months since Arry came back.... Things will settle, soon....

We hope....

Last but not least, Hephaestus, Hera, and Hera's daughter Eileithyia (the Goddess of Childbirth) all conspired together to get Erebus and Ath-naa wedded properly, in every way, for a final cosmos-bound prophecy to be fulfilled.

There are more little ones, more Titans, that have to be Born of Time and Memory....

However, Erebus and Ath-naa have not been told this ulterior motive. They only know they love each other beyond the words to express it, and the shadows are just beginning to pull away in that simple truth's light....

* * *

Now that all of that's out of the way:

Enjoy a quick recap of some important Titan-speech!

Kath-taa: the truth in my words, or "I promise, I swear"

Poh-lach: sit down, or set down.

Hence, Poh-tamoi - "down from Tamoi". The Potamoi are Tamoi's constructed little ones. You'll get that history later.

Lo-ota: lord-king, a term for a "claimed King," a King claimed by a Queen or King. An almost-obsolete term, it can refer to Oranus, Erebus, and also, technically, Hades.... Though no one has officially used it for Hades yet.... Yet....

Kah-kidikeh: My Queen. Literally. My. Queen.

Lah: generic negative, "no, not"

nor-shai: dark-bright, an endearment Erebus has used for Khi a time or two.

That's just some of the main ones you need going in. I plan to expand Titan-speech a lot more in this fic, both with Khi and other little Titans still to be born in reality, so.... We'll see how deep I can world-build this shit. 

That's everything for now, I think. The very next chapter begins with both Arry's first night home, and Erebus and Ath's wedding night. From there, we move into everybody's new Life. And by everybody, I do mean everybody. You wanted more Arry? You wanted more Tamoi? More Phae? More Khi? More Erebus and Ath? More Persedes?

You get it all....

One last note. The explicit rating on this one is for smex. Of all varieties. I don't think I'll have but a handful of chapters that won't have some smex or smexy thoughts. 

And before it's all said and done, there will be Stranger-than-Strange-form Intimacy. If you've read both parts of Hearts of Void, you know what the hell and fuck I mean with that....

So, without further ado....

Enter my headspace once again, little ones. 

And Enjoy this Life, with all its bright-dark shadows and the truths they reveal to our Selfs....


	2. Once More, With Feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Within is Strange-form Intimacy, including unexpected spell-induced climax, sensory overload, and a bit of praise kink. Within, you will also find more traditional smexies, including shower masturbation.... There's also a lot of feels. Most are happy, some are angsty, some are downright spicy....
> 
> Welcome back, little ones.... We just couldn't wait to see you again....

_Late in the evening of the Autumn Equinox…._

He finally managed to extricate himself from the two anxious beings standing awkwardly in the hallway outside the room.

_My room…._

_Home…._

He smiled at them softly as he pushed the door closed, reassurance and love in the way he crinkled the corners of his eyes as theirs filled with unsheddable tears.

_I’ll still be here in the morning…._

_Kath-taa…._

He leaned against the door, fingers gently clawing into the darkwood surface, his head resting on the line of silver-inlay that he’d never really cared for….

_Before…._

His fuchsia irises bled pinkish light against the glinting shadow-and-shine before his nose, and he couldn’t help but sniffle softly as he finally pushed against the door and turned around.

Everything was exactly as he’d left it _that morning_ , one longer-than-thought year before. The piles of Void-ribbon-bound scrolls, the shelves neatly-labeled in his own tidy penmanship, the various towers and mansions and palaces of books old and new and precious beyond price in their treasures….

There was one thing out of place, though….

On the desk….

The chair was angled away from the cavity underneath the flat surface of the desktop, almost as if some being had only just risen from contemplating the single notebook, laid in shadow with covers closed and precisely positioned in the exact center of the wide-open space.

Melarebus moved through the intervening distance the godly way, no thought to spare for the Void that still called to him in gentle understanding, in offer of peaceful rest and safety, in tempting song of power and purpose….

The chair creaked slightly as he lowered his body into the molded cushions. His bone-white and silver-dancing fingers trembled as he flipped open the cover.

The words faded as the tears welled high, and he only barely glanced at the blurred shapes they made on the cream-pale pages, knowing what they said, unable to forget them….

Until he finally, more than a year after his physical existence was ripped apart:

Finally, he found the words he knew the source of his soul would never have been able to speak of him….

To him in any reality but this….

_But there’s healing in ink on paper, and that’s the only truth I know…._

_“… the Young Majesty… gave up his physical existence for love of his sister and her unborn child…. most brave and courageous…. saved two of my little one’s lives…. my soul’s heir…. I shall Live…._

_“Enjoy the night….”_

_I did…._

_And now, I’ll Live, too…._

The notebook reverently closed, placed with fondness and devotion into its habitual drawer under the right side of the desktop.

_I’ll Live…._

_After all, one year…._

_It’s only one year, and I’m fuckin’ immortal!_

_I’ve got plenty of time to catch everything up!_

_And hell, I’m eighteen now!_

_Screw logistics…._

_I’m eighteen. I lived the last year, technically, even if I don’t remember most of it…._

_Coulda been worse…._

_And whoooo-buddy…._

_Do I have things to do…._

A quick scrabbling hunt through another drawer under the somehow not-dusty desktop, and Arry emerged triumphant with a pen-rack and inkwell and a small bundle of clean pages, only bare shades darker than his milky hands.

_Alright, let’s get this right…._

_So much to get down, don’t wanna risk it all fading to nothing…._

_Let’s see…._

_This isn’t really King’s Advice…._

_And it’s not exactly History, but it’s not foresight either…._

_Well, maybe…. Yeah…._

_Knowledge, Found in the Void_

_A Record of Insights and Promised Occurrences_

_Discovered and Held in Trust by the Young Majesty_

_Until the Shadows be Brought to Truths_

_Until the Stars Drift from the Cosmic River_

_And Live in Reality_

_Dancing in the Light For All Eternities…._

_Oh, yeah. Still got it…._

_Now, what’s the most important one…?_

_On Primordials, Titans, Gods, and Firsts:_

_Specifically, the differences between their existences and power:_

_The Primordial Ones do not exist in flesh. Their power is as unbound as the cosmic river itself, as Nature Its Self. They exist, and must exist, for reality to Be._

_They are the Pillars that hold up the cosmos and form these Realities we experience under their breath…._

_Titans are bound to the power of the Primordial Ones. Titanomic power is a shadow of Primordial truth, ancient and ethereal in its construct and use. Titans wielded and wield control over aspects of the Primordial Ones’ Constructed Realities, and are bound in flesh to interact in these realities._

_Titans functioned as Nature’s keepers, as stewards of the Realities the Pillars shaped by their thoughts._

_Gods are a further generation apart from these deep wells of power. More targeted in their strength, the more-ancient gods wield control over multiple, yet related aspects, of their chosen domains._

_Of the domains for which the cosmos shaped them in reality. The realms that chose them…._

_All things in balance, unless choices be made that subvert the essential harmony and song of the cosmic intent._

_Erebus and Ath-naa, Pillars of Reality and Primordial Ones in their sources of power, are also Titans. Bound in flesh by choice and change, they will not exist forever in these bonds._

_Erebus, most especially. He was never meant to be bound so, as he was born Primordial at the start…. Time began with his first thought, though he does not quite remember the exact passage of it for the first long existence with his little ones, those first Titans…._

_If the cosmic heartbeat’s memories can be trusted, he may already be closer to seven thousand years old; but it is the only truth he needs, that he’s at least five millenniums, so…._

_We’ll let him have his own thought on that…._

_Erebus is not a flesh-and-blood being. Even the physical skin he dons, and has for long ages uncounted, speaks the truth of his existence._

_He possesses no “parts,” as other beings do._

_He has no blood or ichor in his veins._

_Shadows and smoke and mist, the dregs of his true form and Self, are what flows through him with every beat of his constructed-heart._

_Ath-naa, however…. She should have only been a Titan._

_But Pillars are meant to exist with pairs…._

_Gaia’s and Oranus’ choices shaped the cosmos’ last intended Primordial into a Titan-form, as well._

_The Void of the King of Self’s Perception and Manifestations is actually a doorway to the cosmos’ memories, as well…._

_It was always meant this way. I can see it all, saw it all, and…._

_And in time, long years from now, when the Life they live ceases to be more than repetition and unfulfilled longing for something they’ve never experienced…._

_Then…._

_Shadows and stardust will fade from flesh and the Primordial Ones will find their rest…._

_But first…. There are four more little Titans that the cosmos has held in trust._

_First, these two Pillars of Reality must build the bridge for a Heart’s-King, a changeling, and two rival Queens to finally exist in Life…._

_Regarding Firsts…._

_The Firsts are Other, as different from Titans as Gods are from Mortal-kind. A step below Primordial Ones, the Firsts were also created solely by the cosmos Its Self. They existed only to bring forth the other Beings that give Life meaning…._

_However, similar to the Titans, their power had specific, very specific, sources in Nature._

_Tamoi, the First who gave the realms the guardians of ponds and rivers that span from pools, is one such._

_Styx, the River-Queen, spawned all nymphs that claim the flowing waters as their own._

_Brus, the First daimon of bull-kind…._

_Panae, the First satyr._

_And so many others…._

_Many of them faded long ago, unable to find the will to continue when their purpose was exhausted._

_Their memories are all that remain, and those are hidden deep in the star-dotted island in a sea of shadows, buried in the realm of the Queen of Memories Her Self._

_But others exist to the present age._

_Tamoi._

_Styx._

_Duraes, the First drus…._

_And Erebus, His Self…._

_The Incubus are his, though he does not know it yet…._

_But he will, soon…._

_Already his power grows, and as he strengthens with Life given from freely willing bodies, his Self sings out in reality, and the little ones he never knew he spawned will feel him, all across the realms…._

_And in time, those lonely and longing beings will find their peace in the truths he has to share with them…._

_After all, Love is the essential shadow of his long existence._

_He can do no less…._

_He was made to love his little ones…._

The pages are gently tucked into an empty folder and hidden deep within a lower drawer. A lock without a key shifts and clicks into place, keeping out prying eyes and fingers.

His long body rocks across the short space between the desk and his bed, and he lays his Self out in the gently-dipping hollow that cradles him in oddly-warm comfort.

_I’m home…._

_I’m home, and I’m just me, for the first time…._

_Fates, I miss him…._

_Well, I’ll see him soon._

_Maybe we can share a pizza…._

_Or play with the dogs…._

_Or go shoppi-…._

The night passes, and a new day dawns….

* * *

_The evening of the Winter Solstice draws down in somber silence. The peace of the Underworld rings with power this longest night, though most beings are enjoying revels elsewhere…._

“My… own… nightclub?!”

“Yep! Come on, come on!”

The brilliant silver body draped in starlight-shine disappeared through a rift in reality; the wall of dark stone and a locked blackwood door stood between him and his wife now, but he could feel her in the sparking glint beside his heart, the star that was the ring-around-his-neck’s spell-bound signal of their bond.

He blinked, and he stood next to her in the darkness of a cavernously-echoing space. Every beat of his heart seemed to shudder the cold air in this black void of a wide-open room. Though he couldn’t quite make out the dimensions, couldn’t see anything but shadows, he knew he stood directly beside his Queen’s left arm.

Her silver-steel voice was quiet, but he knew a command when he heard one with his ears and Self.

“Squint your eyes, and I’ll turn on the lights, my Shadow.”

He obeyed, his soft sigh letting her know he had, and he felt the power blast out of her, sparking and flickering as the various pieces of electrical equipment soaked up the surge. He felt the tell-tale hum of Void-powered batteries absorbing and storing the excess, preventing overload and blackouts, and though his left eye began watering with the rising light, he could not help but open his eyes further as the dimensions and display were revealed to him.

A seating area in the open space between a wide-flung dance floor and the long, darkling not-marble-topped bar at the back of the room to his right. A small stage, small only in comparison to the dimensions of the dance floor and the rest of this enormous room, took up the center of the front wall far to his left.

The seating area was arrayed with rounded tables, all topped with stardusted not-marble once again; the upholstery on the Omega-curved booth-benches behind each table ranged from Void-black to a single heather-grey, with a healthy smattering of maroons and wine-burgundies sprinkled throughout the crowd. All of them leathery-looking, though he knew it was only appearance.

No animals harmed for this design element…. No death or pain to produce this pleasing scene.

Swirling patterns of stardust danced and shifted over the exposed darkstone walls, never the same shapes twice, and he felt at home like nowhere but _their home_ as he saw her love for him in those coiling mimics of his Self as it was now, dusted by her power and their shared claim.

“Lover, my wife….”

He couldn’t find the words. There were none.

How do you thank your Self’s mate for a gift of Life and belonging and purpose that you never would have dreamed of if you could still dream…?

“That’s not quite everything, my Erebus, my husband. Look over here.”

She walked, silent and graceful and lithe and powerful, weaving around a few of the booths with silver fingers trailing seductively along the fabric. Mist and shine curled up in her wake, and he followed where she led; his mouth went dry as his heart started thundering in slow-pounding rhythm:

_Show me…._

He trailed her, silent but for the softly-purring growls he couldn’t contain. He couldn’t be positive, but he thought she might have been gently pouring out some psychic seduction, and he was helpless to resist the siren song of her silver-shining Self.

She spun back to face him, her fingers catching and twitching in a veil of silver-and-smoke not-fabric that hung from a beam hidden in shadow high above. She draped the almost-cloth over her forearm, bringing it around the front of her torso in a scintillating waterfall of power-made-real.

“Our booth, my King. Permanently reserved, no one will use it if you are not here. A space all your own, a throne of sorts….”

He snarled, hard, needy savagery demanding to be sated. He was beyond thought, beyond civility, but the flare of triumph in her eyes matched his desires, and he knew she would give him what he craved.

“Come sit down, my husband. I would pay my King the honor he’s due….”

A blink, and he was sprawled in sensual abandon in the middle of the curved bench: left arm thrown along the back of the thing, just the right height to support his back without being uncomfortable in its stiffness; legs spread slightly under the edge of the table, cool air caressing his skin; right hand tight around the muscle of his thigh, unable to keep from kneading the skin as everything he was craved an outlet for the sensation-hunger he was waiting for her to ease….

The utter blackness of the upholstery beneath his bare skin tingled with power not his own, and he knew, instinctively, that it was his soul-heir, the Young Majesty, that had crafted this Void-construct. He purred and hummed as his Queen floated into the air, releasing the shimmering curtain as she moved over the table’s black-and-blacker surface. The silver-and-smoke veil wafted behind her in mystery and grace, and he thought he would die in truth as her bare feet finally alighted on the darkly-gleaming tabletop.

Her forearms crossed in front of her chest, and she took in a slow breath. Her eyes were locked on his, and though he could see the movements she was making below her throat:

He only needed the utter love and desire he saw in her eyes, the power and possessive hunger that reflected his own in perfect mirror and match, his mate, his Queen, molded after his own Self:

His wife….

Her fingertips clawed heather-grey streaks into her silver-shining skin as she removed her gown from the neck down. She lifted slightly off the tabletop, spinning like a chime in a breeze as she bared her skin for his enjoyment in power he could never hope to comprehend.

For all that she matched him in every sense, he could never return the favor entirely. Some things were reserved for her alone, and that was as it should be.

He was hers, and always would be.

But she was also his, only by her command….

She held power over him, and he would submit in every way, for all eternities, to the one he had never known could hold his heart so close to her own….

She wore no Void-leggings under the full and sweeping skirts of her wedding gown. As the last shimmering wisps faded to nothing but thought, she turned to face him fully again, drifting forward like a sprite or fae, and he brought his right hand up to take her own proffered fingers as she lowered her body to a soft landing on his lap.

“My Shadow….”

She kissed the coal-dusted skin of his flushed left cheekbone.

“My Erebus….”

Another kiss found its way onto his right cheek, just near the corner of his eye.

“My King….”

Once more, a feather-light brush of damp-warm lips between his brows, but this time, he couldn’t resist the need: he called his crown into existence, the thin line of a single band threading like smoke over his hairline and around his skull, those writhing moon-shine locks lifting and dancing, unbound under the almost-not-real image of his Self’s ancient power:

A King in composition, though he ruled nothing but his own Self….

She pulled away, saw his crown writhing like a thin snake of smoke, and her own crown, silver-bright and twinkling like stars, shimmered into being above her ears, along her hairline, matching his in glory and splendor. She leaned in again, kissing the center of his crown, long inches above his nose, and he shivered as his power howled for release, demanded more, craved the light he could never hold in his own Self, the light she brought to him in strength and grace.

She stared into his eyes, then, and he held his breath, waiting for this last, this gift, this Truth:

“My husband….”

The tears spilled over his silver-dusted lashes as she wrapped her arms behind his neck and kissed him deeply for a few seconds. He had to pull away, gasping for air as his throat locked tight with the emotional upheaval of everything the day had brought to him.

He’d meant it when he told her after their first kiss as husband and wife, meant it with everything he was, that he hadn’t expected it to feel so different.

But it was, somehow, and it was more than he could process….

He tucked his chin behind her shoulder, his arms wrapping around the middle of her torso, and the rings around their necks met for the first time. They both gasped, the shock of starlight and shadow blasting through their bodies in unexpected power, but he could no more pull away from her body than he could unmake his own flesh to atoms….

They simply rode the waves of an unexpected climax, feeling each other’s responses and reactions as if they were one being, together, whole….

Somewhere in that flood of metaphysical sensation, soft sparkles of starstuff in a Void-expanse that flowed like water down a mountain-valley sang in unknown voices, words unheard and unknowable….

But somehow, the starstuff chorus sounded like the laughter of little ones….

Long minutes later, she seemed to surface enough to gently shove him away from her. He collapsed with a thundering gasp into the cushions behind him, his hands locking into the dip of her narrow waist as she rescued them from the grip of such overwhelming pleasure.

She was panting, too, and he tried to focus on her heavily-blushing face with his own tear-misted eyes.

“My Erebus…. We…. I think… we need… to be careful… with that….”

He could only nod, just a bare dip of his chin, as she leaned over his heaving torso, her fingers trailing down along both sides of the long scar left from his poisoning barely five months before. His muscles trembled without conscious thought, and he moaned out a grumbling purr of still-heady need as his breathing eased with the promise of further pleasure.

“I’m assuming you’re nowhere near done, my Shadow…. Shall I continue on?”

He nodded again, unable to summon words past the thrumming rumble his body was producing through his throat.

“Alright then. My King, I need you to know how very much I love you….”

Her fingers skated around, trails of lightning and fire and ice marking his ribs as she danced those lithe digits all over his flesh.

“I spent eons believing what I was told by my camouflage-bound family: that marriage was not something I should look for…. That I was meant to be my best Self, alone….”

He whimpered at the loneliness her memories sent to him, gasped at the sudden dragging claws against his hips, the bare inches of his ass that she could reach from her perch.

“And then you came for me….”

He nipped at her chin as she kissed the tip of his long nose. She chuckled, dark and powerful, as she leaned back again; her right hand held to the air beside her, and a flicker of power not his own placed a small shot-glass full of clear liquid in her fingertips.

“You called to me, and I knew where I belonged….”

Her left hand flat over his heart, and the shot glass offered to his coal-dusted lips. The sweet smell of tequila, exquisite and heady, filled his lungs as he breathed in deeply.

“I belong with you, and I would share this pleasure, Life and Living, with you, now, and always….”

She pulled the tequila away from him, tossing it into her mouth like she did this every day, and his mouth dropped open in surprise.

And anticipation, apparently, as she coasted the glass back to the bar with a thought and power before she lunged toward him for a kiss:

Tequila, sweet and tingly and burning like fire, spilling from her mouth into his, and her tongue chasing the wash with reckless abandon.

It took every ounce of Self-control he possessed to keep from breathing in a gasp and choking on the flood. But instinct asserted its will, and though he swallowed deeply to clear his mouth, he returned her passion with everything he had, rewarded time and again with her hands clawing into his hair, dragging over his shoulders, her hips rocking back and forth on his lap, sensation a nearly-living thing between them as the pleasure rode high and far and wide….

Her scent in his lungs, moonflowers, jessamine, night-black ocean waves….

Her taste on his tongue, tequila and honey and delectable yogurt from their wedding party….

Her skin on his, and her power all around him, and her heart beating with his, almost as if they shared a single pulse….

His hips bucked hard beneath her taut thighs, and their shared climax thundered in silence through reality in this dark-and-shadowed gift of her love. He keened loudly, and she moaned deeply, as their physical bodies shivered and tensed and jolted with the sheer sensory pleasure of release. Her starburst of silver light melting like ice through the billowing clouds of almost-unmaking that his pleasure spawned around them, a nebula of swirling power more than ten feet across in every direction, fading slowly as he collapsed to near-unconsciousness beneath her.

And like always, her lips, her fingers, her words grounding him, keeping him from dying completely as his heart struggled to beat once more:

“I love you, my husband. So much…. You’re mine, my every dream, and I’ll hold you close, for all eternities….”

He purred deep in his chest as she took hold of the fringes of his Self, leading him with her into the heartbeat of the cosmos itself, and together, they drifted, nothing hidden between them, held and seen and known and claimed and loved as no two beings not their Selfs could ever be….

* * *

Long hours later, when the dawn was finally breaking in the mortal realm and Olympus above, Ath and Erebus dressed in their everyday clothes: her grey-dust jumpsuit and his night-dark robe. She’d spent the intermittent breaks in their passion telling him about the things that still needed deciding, now that he _knew_ he was the owner of his own nightclub. She’d been a little shocked at some of the things he’d come up with, but her business-sense knew they were prime examples of the kind of creativity that could turn an “okay” venture into a booming enterprise.

As she picked and plucked at the edges of his robe’s neckline – something she’d taken to doing even when he didn’t need the assistance, because it let her touch him just that little bit more before they had to “behave” – she moved into the last piece of the planning. She was sure he wouldn’t object, but the nightclub was _his_ now. His to own, and his to work on in every way.

That much, she’d been adamant about. She had handed over the reins the minute he accepted her gift by taking his seat in his booth….

“So, I already hired Caernes as a liaison while we were setting this all up. He coordinated the electricians with Hephaestus; he got Arry and the upholsterers in line; and he already lined up shipments of booze for when you’re ready to open. You need a manager, someone in house when you’re not here. Someone you can delegate to, and who in turn can delegate out.”

“I do know how businesses function, lover….” His fingers trapped hers, stilling her nervous motions. “I think Caernes would make an excellent manager. And it’s not nepotism. I’m not _actually_ related to Aidon, or Vanny, or her husband…. And he has been struggling for months to land a decent and gainful employ. I thank you for taking that initiative on my behalf.”

He craned his neck down, hovering for a breathless moment before closing the last micrometers between her lips and his. His hands rubbed along her back, tingling paths of sensation marking her skin in fire and ice beneath her jumpsuit’s not-fabric. His mouth still tasted of the tequila she’d given him at the start of the night, and she drowned as her breath seemed to fill her lungs less and less frequently, less and less deeply.

He finally broke away, a smirk on his lips that struck her as far too smug for how utterly undone she was feeling, and then – like a cool breeze wafted over her body and mind – she surfaced from a haze of lust….

“You…. _You damned fertility deity! You brain-washed me!_ ”

“I’m sorry; did you not enjoy it? If not… oh hell, if not, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to take advantage, fuck, please forg-….”

She silenced him with another kiss and chased his fear away with a breathless giggle.

“I enjoyed it; you just surprised me…. No forgiveness needed, so I don’t want you sorry. I was only teasing.”

He chuckled sheepishly as they began walking hand-in-hand toward the still-locked doorway back into the loading-bay-turned-outdoor-foyer of Heart of Void. “I keep forgetting. I’m supposed to ask and wait before I just panic. I’ll try a little harder…. So, you did like it? I…. Phae’s been helping me figure some things out. Some things like what the incubus did for him that one time. The libido-boost, for one….”

“Yeah, Erebus, I liked it. You’ll just have to be careful that Hera doesn’t hear you can do that, or she’ll tag you as another ‘not-allowed-to-influence,’ like she has Eros and Aprhodite….”

“The little Queen of Honor doesn’t have to worry about me. Also, she couldn’t command me if she tried. There’s really only one Queen I answer to, now that she’s claimed me in every way possible….”

The triumphant almost-light shining from his ruby-glinting eyes could only have been compared to bloodlust: it was a feral thing, possessive, hungry, savage in its intensity.

The happily-sappy smile beneath those territorial orbs softened his expression into something utterly beautiful as they entered his Void and headed for home, the long way round….

* * *

Hephaestus rolled to his left in his bed, the sheets tangling around the pajama pants he’d bought specifically for the night before. His phone was buzzing quietly on the nightstand, and he thumbed the red button, firmly, to shut off the alarm’s rhythmic vibrations.

_Worst. Night. Of. My. Life._

He collapsed back onto the mattress, his right arm flopping onto his abdomen as he stifled a rumbling groan of a sigh.

_I never thought I could hurt this way…. Shit. Definitely should not have offered. Could have avoided this whole thing._

The thin being in the bed to his right sat up, slowly, raven’s-black hair falling in its usual ever-damp curtain between them. He couldn’t see Tamoi’s face, but the clenched fists planted hard in Tamoi’s sheet-covered lap didn’t bode well.

_Hell…._

_Oh, hell…._

“Hephaestus, did you sleep well?”

“I’ve slept better….”

Tamoi’s head turned toward him, just slightly, enough that the angular lines of steely-blue hawkish nose caught a hint of fluorescent light from the distant front entry-space of Hephaestus’ cavernous workshop/living room/bedroom.

“Not a lie, because you didn’t sleep, did you…?”

Hephaestus ground out the sigh he’d smothered moments before.

“I didn’t sleep, no…. You?”

“No. I…. I can feel…. I feel what you’re feeling….”

_Fuck, I’m fucked…._

“Tamoi, I didn’t offer my home to you because I wanted to steal you from him….”

“I know…. I feel that, too…. This is…. This is not something you ever wanted, is it?”

“No…. I never knew I could…. It’s never happened before, and I figured, if it was going to, it would have been him, you know?!”

“I know…. I….” Tamoi swallowed, and his voice warbled when he spoke again. “How I know….”

“Fuckit, Tamoi, please don’t…!” Hephaestus stopped himself, halfway lunged across the wider-than-sense mattress toward the tear-choked First-being. “Please don’t cry….” He pulled his hand back, refusing to make things worse.

“Hephaestus, I….”

“You don’t have to say anything. I’ll…. I’ll do better. I won’t put you in an uncomfortable position. I can’t help what I’m feeling, but I know better than to make things harder on anyone else because I suddenly fell in-….”

Shining steel-and-stars eyes found his own, the damply-shining black hair shifting with the ricochet of Tamoi’s sudden movement….

“Maybe I don’t want you to stay away from me…. But I don’t know what I’m ready for….”

Hephaestus could only gape like a fish, and he felt like one too, beached upon a shore, normal air as alien and foreign as methane to his lungs.

“I…. I think it would be nice to feel something less tangly than what I feel for him. But I need time. I don’t want you to stay away. I don’t want you to stop feeling. I know you won’t be able to…. Fuck, how I know that, too…. Just…. Take it slow? Please? Let me figure this out….”

Hephaestus nodded, his heart starting back like his motorcycle’s engine: fast, loud, thundering through his chest in hope and wonder.

“I’m going to go take a quick rinse in the shower. Then maybe we could have breakfast? And then you can take me home?”

“Rinse? Why rinse…? Huh?”

Tamoi’s smile was soft and brilliant, and Hephaestus knew he’d never seen anything so wonderful.

“I’m just feeling a little dry…. I’m not gonna end up an invalid, but I’d just like a little damp on my skin before we ride back in the wind later….”

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Pond. Yeah….”

_Hell, Heph, babble like an idiot, why don’t ya!?!?_

_And stop thinking about what he’ll look like in the shower!!!!!_

Tamoi scootched and shuffled off the bed, and Hephaestus nearly bit off his tongue as he thrashed the other way, trying to ignore the image blazed into his mind, unable to do so.

Tamoi’s pajama bottoms had rode down a little during the night, and the curves of taut ass-cheeks had been visible in a thin line above the waistband….

_Easy, you beast…._

_Give him time…._

_This isn’t lust._

_This isn’t pure stranger-than-weird dickery…._

_This is…._

_Hell…._

_This is love…._

_And hell. Yep._

_Both._

He waited until he heard the shower turn on, and then he had to move. He clambered off the bed, snatching his jeans from the hook on the wall beside the nightstand as he rose to his feet, his own loosened flannel-y pants dribbling onto the floor.

_He didn’t shut ya down…._

_Just give it time._

_Maybe it is a fluke…._

_But…._

_Maybe not…._

_And if not…._

_I won’t scare him off. I’ll be whatever he needs…._

_I love him…._

_I’m in love with him…._

_Sorry, projects. Sorry, tools._

_It’s your turn to share…._

* * *

Tamoi stepped into the shower, pulling the metal-bound door closed behind his body. The tepid water felt like ice along his flushed skin, and he tried to resist the urge to wrap his fingers around his twitchingly-erect cock.

_Hell…._

Thrusting his body under the cascading streams of water, he stood with hunched shoulders, breathing through bared-and-clenched teeth, trying to get a grip on his unexpected arousal.

_I…. I can’t do this. It’s not fair, to any of us…._

He thought back to the last glimpse of Erebus that he’d had the evening before, the absolute happiness that seemed to illuminate moon-bright skin from within….

Hot on the heels of that image was the contrasted image of Hephaestus’ night-dark and obsidian features just moments before, ice-blue eyes desperate to console and hungry to have….

Two beings: one he could not help but love, and the other that seemed to be falling rapidly in love with him….

And oddly, it was the thoughts of the bulky jet-colored Smith in the large room just one open doorway away that had his cock refusing every attempt at calm and collected focus, rather than the being he loved with his entire heart….

Those glacier-bright eyes, so stunning in a face made of hard planes of earth-and-bedrock.

Rolling shoulders and massive palms, calloused, with wide fingers more than capable of picking apart tiny pieces of machinery with finesse.

Long legs, thick with muscle and sinew, a dancer’s legs under a laborer’s torso….

_Fuuuuck…._

Even the obvious scars and twisted damage on Hephaestus’ right leg, covering that supple darkness in a history of near-death-made-strength, barely masked under the Void-brace Erebus had gifted to the Smith short months before:

Even _that_ had Tamoi craving like nothing he’d ever experienced before….

He wanted.

The fingers of his right hand wrapped around his cock, and he began stroking slowly, gently, unwilling to admit to his own Self that he was actually doing this….

_He’s so big…._

_Hell, what if he hadn’t stopped reaching for me in the bed…?_

_Would I have…?_

_I would. I would have._

_I’d have leaned into his touch, I’d have felt those fingers on my arm…._

_I’d have let him stroke my arm, and I probably would have shivered a bit…._

_Fuck, his fingers would be so huge around my cock…._

Tamoi’s hips stuttered forward at the thought, and he could almost feel those fingers, just one nearly twice-as-wide as his own slender digits, overlapping his entire hand, urging him on.

_He’d have got onto his hands and knees, and those cute blue pajama pants would be hanging loose, but not loose enough to hide his cock…._

_Hell, how big is he? Erebus always seems worn out when he comes back from seeing Hephaestus…. He’s gotta be pretty huge, or maybe he just…._

_Fuck it, it doesn’t matter:_

_Maybe he’d have moved up behind me, leaned over…._

_Oh, sweet cosmos, his chest on my back…._

_His lips, on my ne-…!_

Tamoi groaned, hard and long, as he found release, the water flashing across his skin with sudden heat as the flush drained out of his body with his orgasm…. His left hand splayed with claw-like tension against the wall of the shower, just above the control-knobs. He panted as the aftershocks thrashed through him, and his eyelids fluttered up, his vision dim around the edges with the sudden end to his arousal.

_Oh, shit. I’m done for…._

_I told him I wanted time…._

_Do I, though?_

_I…._

_Nearly five-thousand years of waiting for Erebus…. Only a few months **with** him…._

_And here I am, jacking off for the first time ever, to thoughts of somebody else, somebody Erebus marked long ago, same as me…._

_…._

_Maybe we’re all just one tangled four-way mess, and maybe I should stop denying what I obviously want to feel…._

_Nah. I’ll still think this over for a while. But at least I can get through breakfast now…._

_Maybe…._

_But maybe I’ll just take myself home by way of my pond, rather than having him drive me home. Don’t think I can resist this if I had to hold him on his bike._

_Give it time…._

_We all need time…._

_But…._

_Erebus wants me to be happy. That’s all he wants…._

_Whatever I need…._

_I need Hephaestus…._

* * *

Hephaestus pulled the toast from the wide skillet on his hot-plate, regretting once again that he had refused every offer Erebus had ever made regarding helping him furnish his kitchen. He didn’t mind his bachelor-esque diet, not at all:

Until he had a being in his home that he was oddly eager to impress with his home-making skills.

_What home-making skill?!?!_

_Ya live in a damn machinery shop!_

_Fuck…._

He slathered a light coating of butter on each piece of toast, placing them carefully to one side of the two tin plates he’d pulled out of the drainboard earlier.

_He needs time…._

_Just breakfast. Then take him home…._

_But, he could have gone home portal-wise…._

_He offered to let me take him home._

_Maybe, just maybe, there’s hope…._

“Hephaestus…?”

“Just a second, let me finish pouring this….” He tilted the quart of grape juice back to vertical and twisted the cap back on. “Yeah, Tamoi…?”

If Hephaestus had been holding a plate or cup when he turned around, he’d have dropped everything, or crushed the tin, or both.

Tamoi stood at the end of Hephaestus’ kitchen island, naked as the dawn, a sheen of dampness coating every bare inch of his skin to glistening beauty. Hephaestus felt his eyes raking up and down the lines of Tamoi’s steel-blue body, unable to stop himself from taking in the entire picture as his heart thundered like a Pegasus through his chest.

Oddly enough, the Pegasus was upside-down somehow, its wings fluttering frantically somewhere around his stomach.

“Tamoi, you don’t have to do th-….”

_Stop looking at his dick, dammit, you fuckin’ pervert!_

“Hephaestus, I don’t have to. I want to….”

_Oh, shit, he’s coming closer…._

“But, you said….”

_Eyes, eyes, focus on his eyes!_

“I did. I was wrong….”

_You…._

_You want me…?_

Tamoi stepped closer, movements supple, swaying, and silver-gold lines of light rippled up and down Tamoi’s skin from his heart. Hephaestus felt his own ghost-lights shimmering over his body, and he regretted having put a work-shirt on before beginning breakfast.

“I was wrong, Hephaestus. I want you. I do. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what I was just doing, thinking, in the shower, so…. I want to show you….”

“You…. You don’t want to wait…? Not that I’m complaining, I just want to be-”

Tamoi pressed damp-cool palms to Hephaestus’ shirt, right over his pectorals, and then steel-dark lips were molding around and over his own plum-colored mouth; he sagged a little, leaning back against the counter behind him, as he brought his arms around Tamoi’s waist, dragging the pond-guardian closer. Tamoi’s bare feet brushed against Heph’s own toes, and then Tamoi’s cock was slotted, firmly, in the space under Hephaestus’ own burgeoning erection. Though still trapped behind his jeans, Hephaestus thought he’d never felt anything so wonderful as the obvious evidence of a need that matched his own.

He immediately felt guilty for so easily discounting all the pleasure he’d had with Erebus, and he broke from the kiss, pure animal instinct howling that he was a fool; but this was different, decidedly so, from any other encounter he’d ever had with any other being, including that ancient being with a heart full of caring and sweet sincerity.

He was falling in love with Tamoi, and that made all the difference in the cosmos.

“Tamoi, please…. You said you didn’t want _tangly_ , but this is still tangly…. We both owe Erebus. There’s no way we’ll be able to keep thoughts of him out of our heads, or at least I won’t, hard as I might try…. He’s given me so much. Every time I stand upright, I’m reminded of him….” Heph cocked his knee a little bit, grimacing at the twinge the movement shot through his aching groin. “And on top of that, he needs us…. The club, it won’t be enough for him, you know that. He needs both, like meat and vegetables…. He needs us, and…. I don’t think I can turn him away….”

Tamoi’s eyes glittered for a moment with unshed tears, but he seemed to rally, licking his lips.

“I can’t either…. I…. I think this is a safer kind of tangly, though. More fair, perhaps. He needs Ath, like I need him, like you’re starting to need me?” Tamoi waited for a moment, and Hephaestus managed a shaky, tear-choking nod. “You need him, like he needs us, like I’m starting to need you…. Emotional, physical…. Maybe, somehow, we can balance it all if we just stop overthinking this shit!”

And Tamoi closed the gap once more, grinding his cock hard against and beneath Hephaestus’ denim encased need as he nipped one plum-colored lower lip in challenge. Hephaestus hesitated for a moment longer….

Then he growled and eliminated the distance, shoving aside all worries of awkward explanations and tangled love-lives and sex-lives and friendly-beneficial arrangements as he took and gave, asked and answered, pulled and pushed and begged and claimed….

Somehow, they made it around the various worktables and benches and metal stools and boxes of parts and tools. Somehow, he would never be able to say how, he was out of his shirt, out of his pants, and he and Tamoi were naked on the bed.

Somehow, he was sitting with his back against the headboard legs straight out in front of him, Tamoi’s cock and his own wedged between their abdomens. Tamoi wriggled and rocked back and forth, up and down, delightfully random friction pinging through Hephaestus’ frazzled nerves with every motion.

Somehow, they’d never stopped kissing, either….

Tamoi finally pulled away, and Hephaestus growled, a commanding sound, one that had frightened other bedmates in the past at his obviously unnatural origins. No being should be able to sound quite like boulders in a volcano’s throat, and Heph usually tried hard to keep that tone out of his voice.

But sometimes, there were no words, only sounds: desperate desire breaking chains centuries old in a moment of passion-and-naught-else.

“Easy, my darkling….” Tamoi’s voice was an autumn whisper of breeze, rippling waters under a cloud-dancing sky. “I just wanted to snag….” Right hand, long steely-colored fingers, reaching through thin air in command. The drawer in Heph’s nightstand slid open with a dragging sound, and the bottle of lube floated into a grey palm on a rippling-shine patch of air, like the heat-streaks over a metal car-hood on a hot summer’s day.

Heph growled again, softer this time, as he waited for Tamoi’s next move.

“You’re so big, my darkling…. So big…. I know I don’t know a lot, but…. Is just hands okay, for today?”

Heph nodded, hard, his chin bumping his collarbone repeatedly. Tamoi’s breathy giggle was music, the sweetest song he’d ever heard.

“Okay, then, my darkling…. I already, um, came, in the shower. Lemme get you caught up, and then we’ll see where things go?”

He growled in agreement, and the shuddery shiver the sound produced in Tamoi on his lap had his cock jumping violently against Tamoi’s own cock.

His panting breaths stopped as Tamoi squeezed a hefty dollop of lube into his thin-fingered hand, and then Hephaestus found himself struggling to stay with his ass flat to the mattress as those lithe things wrapped around the middle of his aching cock. Tamoi shifted back a little, softly-curving ass-cheeks planting themselves in the middle of Heph’s thighs, and Tamoi’s hand began moving.

Hephaestus lost his mind somewhere around the third stroke. He didn’t remember anything, anything at all….

Nothing but pleasure as the being he loved worked to bring him to ecstasy….

He woke later to Tamoi swiping dampness from his cheeks and the creases beside his nose and eyes with a soft towel. Tamoi was kneeling on the mattress to Heph’s left side, and the moist feeling of the skin on his own night-dark chest and thighs let him know he’d probably come while he was blacked out.

He wrapped his fingers around Tamoi’s wrist, stilling the pond-guardian’s motions with gentle command.

“I’m sorry, Tamoi…. But thank you…. I’ve never….”

He couldn’t finish the thought, didn’t have the air, the tears strangling him, blinding him….

Soft fingers pried his own calloused ones off that thin wrist, so small in his massive over-worked hand. Two cool-damp palms, somehow not-clammy, despite the combination of sensations, wrapped either side of his face in tender caring.

“Please don’t apologize. I’ll admit, I’m a little pleased that I was able to do that to you. Mostly, I’m just glad you let it be me…. That you stopped overthinking, and let **_us_** be….”

The growling snarl that highlighted that word burned into Hephaestus’ mind with the forge-fires of unknown destiny.

“ ** _Us…._** ”

Tamoi kissed him again as he uttered his own rumbling agreement, and together, they found solace, peace, and love in a bed where, for this moment at least, no other beings but them mattered….

_Let everything go…. We’ll make this work…._

“I love you, Tamoi….”

“I’ll hold your heart, Hephaestus…. I’ll keep it safe….”

And though he couldn’t always sense everything in the field of psychic energy and auras that permeated every immortal’s existence:

He knew there was no lie in the words this steely-soft being spoke with a voice of ancient waters deep and tranquil under an autumn sky….

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew.... No lie, this was a bit of a beast to write.... But I'm ultimately very proud of it, as it sets everything up quite nicely....
> 
> I can't wait for thoughts, little ones! I know there's a lot going on here, but as we keep moving down the line, things are only going to get clearer.... For the most part....
> 
> I think....
> 
> Please enjoy this extra Christmas present from your Swoonie. And stay tuned for further Titanic developments as the days roll on, lengthening steadily from this darkest time of year toward light's peak at the summer solstice....
> 
> And yes, that is important....
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are yogurt to my darkling soul! Bring it on!


	3. An Open Heart (of Void)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the middle of January in the Underworld....
> 
> Grand Openings, new developments, and bright-dark understandings.... What could go wrong?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Within are themes of:
> 
> Strange-form Intimacy; flirting; anxiety - general and social; power-bound dominance and territorial aggression; alcohol and the effects thereof on ancient beings with atomic-level metabolisms; and pining. So much pining....
> 
> Also, *technically* underage drinking, according to our modern moralities; but *technically* it's canonical legal drinking age in the LO universe/multiverse. So, herewith, you are warned....
> 
> PROCEED, LITTLE ONES!

The softly falling snow made little pat-pats of mushy almost-sound on the hood and windshield. Hephaestus didn’t care, though, not a bit, that he’d be needing to wax and wipe the jet-dark and chrome tomorrow morning after the little flecks left their spackling of dust-and-grime….

All he could see, feel, care about at the moment were the cool lips on his, the long fingers threading through his hair to pull him closer, the teasing-darting tongue driving him mad….

“Tamoi… really… we….”

A breathless chuckle that somehow washed against his mouth with the taste of autumn’s last grapes and apples: crisp and fresh, with the promise of colder nights and delights to come.

Hephaestus gave himself up to the pleasure, not even acknowledging the steadily increasing thrum of voices and feet shuffling outside the car’s darkness. The windows were nearly opaque, and in this Underworld snow-soft night, there was no chance of being spied on. So he kissed his love and wondered past the haze if he could get a hand _down there_ before Tamoi noticed….

But then a long-fingered hand was on his own crotch, and he gasped loudly, hearing the sudden-falling quiet outside his car and knowing he’d been caught.

“Now, now, my darkling…. The windows are blacked out, not their ears….”

“Tamoi, _please_ ….”

“Please continue, or please stop…?”

Those fingers didn’t move; and Hephaestus wondered….

“Stop. Save it for later.” His voice was breathless, but that was fine….

He loved the anticipation….

“Mmmmmm. You read my mind. I love the idea of you trying to hide your giant dick tonight, knowing exactly what I’m going to do to it as soon as we get home….”

“Stop it….”

“Everything, or just the dirty talk…?”

Long fingers trailed teasingly off his jeans-encased erection, and he shuddered, loving the feral light that sparked in Tamoi’s eyes.

“Stop it with that mouth so I can kiss you again!”

Hephaestus grabbed hold of Tamoi’s damply-stringy hair, cupping his palms over those lightly-pointed ears, and dragged his love in for a drowningly-possessive kiss.

Which he ended as soon as he felt Tamoi thrusting his own half-hard cock against the console between the two bucket seats.

“Hide _that_ , yourself, Tamoi….”

With a rumbling dark chuckle, Hephaestus clambered his way out of the car, apologizing quietly as studiedly-oblivious beings kept their eyes angled away as they cleared out from the space immediately around his car. Tamoi hesitated a moment before he too emerged into the thin rain of frozen flakes, glaring darkly at Hephaestus across the roof of the car.

“That. Was mean, Heph.”

Hephaestus laughed loudly, patting his hand fondly on the top of the car door. The crowd was all shuffling around, impatient now as the minutes dragged by and nothing was happening on the small raised walkway that led to a tightly-closed darksteel door in the otherwise black wall of stone.

Tamoi moved around the car, leaning in forgiveness and camaraderie and love into Hephaestus’ left side. Heph raised his arm, tucking his love close to his heart, and listened in on the growing murmurs and soft whispers of doubt all around them.

_“This is the right place, isn’t it?”_

_“- could have sworn the flyers said it was 7 on the dot....”_

_“-hear that they’re supposed to have Olympus-imported mead and bubbly tonight? I can’t wait to get my hands on that stuff; usually we gotta wait for the King to shell out for company parties….”_

_“Honey, can we just go? This isn’t turning out to be very fun at-”_

The door suddenly swung open, smoke and mist trickling over the threshold and down the angled ramp of the walkway leading up from the outdoor-foyer’s pavement. A humming buzz thrilled along every nerve, and Hephaestus stared overhead, knowing and craving to see with his own eyes what he’d been promised from the minute he began working on this project for his first lover’s wedding present.

The elegantly curving shapes blazed suddenly with moonlight-bright and captured silver star-shine; the glow illuminated hundreds of upturned faces, and for a breathless moment, silence reined in this echoing box canyon of a back alley as the image burned itself into every mind with power and majesty:

**_Heart of Void_ **

Lost in contemplation of those brilliant shapes more than thirty feet overhead, Hephaestus grunted a little as Tamoi elbowed his ribs. Forcing his gaze down, he licked his lips as Tamoi hummed.

Their shared lover was framed in the narrow doorway, shadows billowing up from under the edges of his stardust-lined robe, his moonbright hair lifting and dancing in the wake of his power. His left arm was raised overhead, the loose folds of his bell-cut sleeve draping in elegance from the thin band of darkness around his middle finger keeping it attached to his body. Huge, wide, blazing with inner almost-light: wine-red eyes swept over the crowd, and coal-dark lips curled in a soft smile as the owner of Heart of Void spotted Hephaestus and Tamoi by the sleek lines of Heph’s classic muscle car.

_Yes, my King. Pull out all the stops tonight…._

_You only have a grand opening once…._

Erebus’ gentle smile split apart into a wide-beaming grin of pure excitement, a pulse of power blasting in invisible waves and ripples over the crowd of nearly 200 immortals of all kind and type. A deeply-felt rumble of aura-thunder followed the demanding call of a Primordial King, and the physical realm’s silence was grave-like under the dark Underworld sky above as Erebus took in a slow breath through his wolfishly-opened lips, his hand coming down in a gentle gesture of power bound for the safety of a King’s guests.

“Welcome to Heart of Void.”

The King of Shadows turned and disappeared into the darkness within the building without a backward glance, dark-velvet voice seeming to echo without sound, white hair and hands melting away like ghosts of ghosts….

The crowd shifted as one, a quick shuffle forward of enthusiasm followed immediately by a rocking-back motion of suspicion and uncertainty.

Tamoi laughed loudly, a single raucous bark of mirth, breaking the spell, and tugging insistently on Hephaestus’ hand, the King of Ponds and Springs threaded a path through the milling throng, heading for his first glimpse of the inside of a nightclub’s mysterious expanses.

Hephaestus chuckled with his love as he felt the crowd finally beginning to follow them into the darkness.

* * *

**_Well, that’s that…. Let’s see if they take the bait…._ **

_They will, my Erebus. Just wait._

“Hey, boss, you ready for this?!”

“Yes, little godling. Ready as I can be.”

“Excellent! Alright, I’m gonna get the jams running. The barkeeps have already been prepped, so, I guess just mingle, and let me know if there’s anything we need to adjust! This is gonna be a great night!”

Caernes barreled off toward the far side of the bar, the laptop glowing with faint blue-white light in the shadows, a clipboard stacked with papers resting atop the keyboard. Erebus and Ath stayed at the corner of the bar nearest the door, trying not to look menacing as their skin nearly glowed in the darkness.

**_They’re not coming in…._ **

_Patience._

A loud bark of laughter, and then thumping feet thudding through the concrete and stone leading to the front door. Erebus could feel the sensations as clearly as if they were his own.

**_That’ll be…._ **

“Hey, Erebus! Wow, the place looks great!”

Tamoi pulled from Hephaestus’ grip, darting farther into the dimly-lit seating area, inspecting the booths and tables with heady enthusiasm. His excitement rippled through the aura-fields, sparking against Erebus’ and Ath’s Selfs with silver-gold almost-brightness. Hephaestus turned with a darkly-thundering chuckle toward the couple, and Erebus smiled brightly into that night-dark glacier-eyed face.

“It really does look incredible, Erebus. These stardust swirls: a _very_ nice touch.” Hephaestus thumped his knuckles against the wall, the shifting patterns dancing with the vibration.

“That was all my wife, Phae….”

The way his heart jumped and danced behind his ribs as he said those beloved words had him sighing in utter pleasure, melting a little into his wife’s half-embrace as she floated upward to kiss his cheek.

Music began building slowly then, rising in a gentle wash that grew louder and louder from the numerous speakers all round the club’s space, and Tamoi shot up from where he’d been bouncing on one of the horse-shoe shaped benches behind a round dark-topped table.

“Heph, you hear that?!!?”

“I do, love!”

“ _Come dance with me!_ ”

Tamoi shot across the floor, fingers out-stretched for Hephaestus’, and Erebus cackled behind one hand as Hephaestus playfully resisted the King of Ponds and Springs’ insistent tugging reach. The night-dark Smith and steel-grey potamoi-King were both wearing dark-coal jeans and navy-midnight dress-shirts; of a height even if not in sheer mass, the pair drew the eye like black-diamonds in a pewter setting. They passed in front of the still-open door, heading for the open dance-floor space beyond the seating area as the first wary patrons began crowding the entryway.

Some of the various immortals and daemons were eyeing the two beings dancing giddily under the softly-pulsing pastel lights; others were eyeing the drus and nymph and draiad managing the bar; a few were staring with terrified eyes at Erebus and Ath where they stood in the shadows just feet away from the door.

Erebus smiled as softly as he could, pushing gently with his Self against the wary beings hesitating in his nightclub’s doorway.

“Welcome, little ones….”

The trickle became a flow, and a few minutes later, there was hardly any hint of wariness in the steadily-increasing enthusiasm filling his Heart of Void.

Erebus bent toward his wife, smiling brighter than the fullest moon high above in the Underworld sky, kissing her sweetly as his wedding present filled with heady pleasure and fun, a space for him to find a place in society he’d never before had….

* * *

Ath and Erebus stayed near the door long after the last of the eager crowd had entered the club. They had no bouncer, fully intended never to have one, as Caernes had insisted it was an unnecessary expense and unwarranted image. Most nightclubs in Olympus dealt with rowdy imbeciles with regularity, but the Underworld’s very nature imposed a different energy on the businesses within its compass.

And Caernes himself was more than capable of breaking up a fight with his own two hands, if needed.

Erebus had bent to his manager’s perception, and Ath thought once again how great a choice Caernes had been.

_Everything happens for a reason. He was having such trouble finding a job, because he was **meant** to work here, for us, with us._

Finally, though, she felt Erebus’ shiver slightly, bending a little from his waist and curling around his abdomen.

_Hungry, my King?_

**_Yes. Just…. Wanted to wait and see if Aidon and Arry were going to come…._ **

_I know. But we should get you taken care of. Is the party going good enough for your tequila now?_

**_Yes…. Fine. Let’s go sit…._ **

She moved from his left side to his right, threading her arm around his elbow and steering his softly-trembling form around the milling bodies approaching and retreating from the bar. She felt his pleasure as the various immortals barely spared them a glance, his enjoyment at being accepted for the first time in company like this.

_You deserve it, my Erebus. You deserve so much; enjoy it…._

**_You…. You’re spoiling me again…._ **

_You. Deserve. To. Be. Spoiled…._

She smirked wickedly as he blushed heavily, tucking his chin to his chest as he smiled shyly.

They approached an empty space at the bar, and the teak-colored drus slid on shining-black shoes to lean across the bar in front of them. Erebus’ blush thickened, and Ath laughed out loud as the drus fluttered his eyelashes over amber-glowing eyes at the King of Void.

“What can I get for you, boss? Obviously, it’s on the house….”

“ _Te-hng….”_

“Teh…. Tequila? You like tequila…?”

Erebus only nodded, and Ath cackled anew as she heard him swallow audibly. The drus smiled broadly, turning away from the bar and reaching high on a shelf for a square-based glass bottle; Ath couldn’t help but wonder where Caernes picked this one up from. He was utterly flirtatious, obviously interested in her King, and she knew that had probably been more than half the reason Caernes had hired him.

Caernes knew the behind-the-scenes reasoning for the nightclub, and Ath was rapidly becoming attached to her friend’s husband as another line of support in her care of her many-faceted King’s needs….

_He’s so intuitive. Definitely the best choice here._

The drus was back, small shot-glass in hand, extended in smooth tannin-dark fingers toward her King. Erebus reached for the glass, couldn’t help but brush his own bone-white fingers over the brown ones as he took his drink in hand, and Ath felt him wriggle as one of his soft-thrumming orgasms threaded up his spine. She smiled as she leaned into his side, nudging him with her elbow, as he seemed frozen and unable to reply coherently.

“Ah, um, -chrm…. Thank you, uh….”

“Oh, name’s Teno. And you’re welcome, Erebus….”

“Teno….” Erebus breathed it out like a prayer, and Ath nudged his Self with her own in gentle reminder.

_Lemonade, my King. If you wanna flirt, later. Let’s get your tequila down first, okay…?_

**_Fine…. But he is cute, isn’t he…?_ **

_I’m rather biased, so…. Nah…._

“Thank you, Teno. My Ath, do you want anything?”

“Mmmmmm, I’ll take a bit of red, if you don’t mind, Teno. Any vintage is fine, I only sip a bit.”

“I’ve got just the one for you, my Queen.”

The drus swept away again, dancing on his long feet in their shining raven shoes around the nymph who was shaking something in a brass tumblr for a potamoi across the bar; the draiad came from around the back wall then, cradling a bottle of house-special something-or-other close to her curvy chest as she swiped a rag over it, drying the condensation away. Erebus swirled his tequila, waiting until they were safely ensconced in his booth before he took even the first taste; her King’s eyes followed the drus as he disappeared behind the wall of shelves and bottles as well, and his shivering increased slightly as both his hungers cried out to be sated.

**_…. Let me go sit down, Ath. I…. I don’t know if I can take much more of this._ **

_You sure…?_

**_It’s…. I’m just getting hungrier by the minute; I can wait on the other, if I can just get this tequila down…._ **

_Okay. Go on, I’ll be there as soon as Teno gets back._

**_Thank you, my Truth._ **

Erebus moved away from her, staggering slightly as he nearly bumped into a swiftly-turning nymph carrying an armful of glasses back to her friends. She heard his mumbling rumble of apology, and then he was almost darting across the floor, slipping behind the curtains of silver-and-smoke power into his booth. His maroon eyes almost glowed as he met her gaze through the hazy-gauze of the curtains, and he raised his tequila in salute before tossing it back with a smirk.

His eyes disappeared in shadow; even over the distance, she knew they’d rolled back in his head at the taste, and she chuckled as her sense of him faded, giving him space as he took sustenance from the heady excitement and tension of flirting enjoyment that swirled like smoke and incense through this nightclub she’d given him.

“Here you are, my Queen.”

Teno was back, and Ath took the slender-stemmed goblet from him with a smile.

“Thanks; I won’t keep you any longer, Teno.”

“Oh, it was my pleasure. And, ahem, if, um, there’s _anything_ else I can do for _you,_ too….”

_Oh, dear me…._

“Teno, um…. My King may be interested sometime…. I’m not. Sorry if there was some confusion. Also, you’re under no obligation to either of us for….”

“Oh, I know; I’m not thinking it’s part of my job description. But, well, if you don’t mind me saying, my Queen: Your husband is quite the perk of the job….”

Ath spluttered on air, shocked at this bold being’s understanding and willingness and overall personality.

_My poor King; you’re being hunted, and you don’t even know it, do you…?_

**_Yessss, I do…._ **

_Hey, snooping thing…!_

**_Can’t help it…. Feelssss niccce…. Like him…._ **

_Easy…. Later, maybe._

**_Sssoundsss good…._ **

“Well, um…. Thanks again…. For the wine….”

“My pleasure and my job. Enjoy, my Queen, and I’m sorry if I shocked you.”

“No worries.”

“Never.”

Ath sped away from the bar, away from the awkward encounter, unsure if she had liked the attention the drus had leveled on her.

_Whatever. I only want my King…._

**_Want you, too…. Get over here…._ **

_I’m coming, hang on!_

Giggling, she finally slid into the booth, scootching close to his side as he raised his arm for her to tuck against him. His lips were cool on her hair as his arm wrapped her in supple darkness, the folds of his belled-out sleeves draping around her like a shawl.

**_Missed you, Ath, my love…._ **

_Oh, you…._

She sipped her wine as he buried his nose in her hair, breathing slowly and deeply as Life filled him at the tequila’s insistence. He fed for long minutes, pure contentment and peace filling the space around his booth, drowning her in shared pleasure as he held her close to his heart in love….

* * *

“Come _on_ , Dad! Just one!”

“You may be eighteen; you are still my son, and I don’t think it’s right for my boy to get drunk for the first time just _months_ after returning to life!”

“Dad. Seriously…. How old were you the first time you got smashed?! And all I’m wanting is _one_ drink! Just a taste! Not gonna get hammered!”

“Firstly, I was 20 when I got completely _smashed_ , as you so elegantly phrase it. Secondly, one leads to _two_ , and I don’t I know that I want my boy developing my bad habits so soo-”

“Hades…. Come on…. We’ll be there, and Erebus won’t let Arry go completely off the handle….”

“Yeah, Dad, come on….”

“ _Tch…. Fiiiiine…._ ”

“Awesome….”

_I’m gonna get a Pelo-tea…._

_Bang for buck…._

* * *

_My wife…._

_My wife, and this Life…._

_Mmmmmmmmmm…._

“Erebus, hey, look who’s here…!”

**_Hrmmm?_ **

_Arry, and I suppose Aidon and the little flower somewhere, too!_

**_Oh…._ **

He pulled his face from the top of his wife’s head, feeling the fragile threads of his ties to the flow of Life energy in Heart of Void fading as he came out from under their influence. They’d discovered over the past few months that the deeper he let his Self sink into that pool of energy, the longer he could stay feeding on the heels of one shot of tequila. But once he surfaced after the peak of the tequila’s potency, the connection was gone. If he hadn’t fed enough, there would need to be another shot, another attempt, and that desperation was not at all enjoyable….

Hence, his private booth, so he remained undisturbed for as long as possible.

He was very grateful to his wife for her foresight and cleverness, and surfaced gladly, full once more with potent power and sensation, eager to see and visit with his Young Majesty in this space all his own.

Arry was waving brightly from the bar, and Teno was rather-blatantly staring back and forth from the silver-dusted bone-white being in front of him, to where Erebus sat hidden behind the silver-smoke curtains of his booth, and back to the young almost-Titan at the bar again.

Teno licked his lips, and Erebus growled, a savage sound that thundered through physical-and-aura realities in dire warning.

Arry blinked once, turning slowly to stare at Teno, and then one long-fingered hand came up to cover his mouth in shock.

Erebus couldn’t hear what was said, not over his continued growling snarls, but Arry and Teno finished a quick and quiet conversation, and then Arry disappeared in a flash of silver smoke and black-plasma lightning.

He reappeared at the edge of the booth bench, knees already crossed beneath the table-top, a glass of caramel-colored liquid with a lemon-slice garnish swirling in his hand.

“Sorry, old man. Didn’t realize he was interested….” A brilliant smirk, self-satisfied, at Erebus’ darkly-glowering face. “Don’t worry. He’s all yours….”

Erebus stopped growling, and Ath grabbed his chin, turning his face to hers.

“Seriously, you possessive thing…! Did you even hear me!?”

He shook his head, just once to the right and left. He swallowed, worried at the shadow in her eyes. “I’m sorry….” His voice was a breath, and she softened under his obvious remorse.

“I just…. I don’t think I like seeing you that savage these days. Just…. Tell me, were you angry at Teno, or Arry…?”

“I don’t know….”

“…. Well, it’s done; let’s just move on, okay? No more alpha displays tonight, and we should be okay, alright?”

“Yes, my love.” A quick kiss between her eyebrows, and the noises of the nightclub finally began to build once more. The music had never stopped, but most of the beings had gone deathly silent as Erebus staked his claim and issued his threat without the thin veneer of civil behavior. They began to lose themselves in fun and excitement once again, but it would be long minutes before the party was back in full swing, alcohol and heady thumping beats draining away tension and leaving pleasure in their wake.

Erebus was glad he’d already fed….

“Anyway, old man. Place looks fantastic! Those shadow-balls: your idea?”

Erebus smiled as Arry pointed toward the softly-bobbing orbs of smoky-mistyness that hovered in the corners and under the rafters; they danced and pulsed with shifting pastel lights, random and ethereal, dark lanterns of mystery that lent a whimsy to the shadowy spaces in this open room.

“Yes, little one. My idea.”

“Excellent…. May have to make a few of those for Khi next visit. You know she still has the butterfly, right? Vanny had to make it a little cage of popsicle sticks, though: it kept flitting in when she wasn’t looking and scaring her….”

Erebus laughed quietly as Ath cackled, unwilling to scare the little ones enjoying his nightclub again. “Why don’t you make them for her, Young Majesty…?”

“Cause I don’t know if I’ll get it right!”

“Practice….”

“Shuddup….”

Erebus chuckled as Arry lifted his glass to his lips, a slow sip disappearing before Arry grimaced and gave a shudder.

“Oh, hell! That was not what I was expecting!”

“Arry, what did you order?!” Ath was leaning curiously around Erebus’ body, eyes all but sparking as she focused on the liquid sloshing still in the glass Arry had slid to the tabletop.

“Pelo-tea….”

“Tea?!”

“No, my Erebus, really. You won’t like it, trust me….”

“But, you know I like tea now!”

“It’s not my tea, and it’s not tea at all!”

“Howzatnow?”

Arry chuckled and slid the glass toward Erebus. “Let’im have a taste, Ath. Can’t hurt….”

Erebus glanced down at his wife’s wary eyes, fingers twitching as he waited for permission.

“Fine, Erebus. A sip. It’s strong, so, _just_ a sip, okay?”

He hummed out an agreement as he wrapped his hand around the glass and lifted it to his lips.

* * *

Arry watched, sure this was going to be great. Either his heart-soul source would hate it, and the results would be hilarious, or he’d like it, and Arry could see first-hand what it looked like for a Primordial Titan to be happily drunk for being happily drunk’s sake alone.

His curiosity was riding high, and he couldn’t look away as Erebus tilted the glass and took a determined sip.

The quiet hum died to silence as the liquid sloshed and the ice clinked a little, and then Erebus had tilted the glass once more and was all but chugging down huge mouthfuls.

Arry burst out laughing, hands flapping in front of his chest as Ath wrestled the half-empty glass from her lip-licking King’s fingers. Ath glared at Arry, a flash of power blasting against him, shocking him to silence, and then she slung the glass across the tabletop and nearly climbed on top of Erebus’ lap with her hands locking around his ears and cheeks in silent command.

The slowly-boiling ripples of unbound power finally reached him, telling in no uncertain terms why this was probably no laughing matter after all.

_Uh oh._

He threw a few shields around the booth, locking the potential unmaking to this one space, where he and Ath could work together to control and repair whatever damage Erebus might do while he was thoroughly drunk.

But the power simply filled the space, not quite unmaking anything, but not fading either….

_Like he’s just…._

_Relaxed…?_

_Super relaxed…._

_Hmmmmmm…._

_Well, still. My fault kinda. I’ll still hang, make sure it’s nothing bad…._

_But I suppose maybe Dad was right…._

_I’ll wait until I have more control before I see about getting drunk…._

_And it won’t be Peloponnesian Tea next time._

* * *

_My Erebus, hey, can you hear me?_

**_Mmmmmm-hmmmmmm…._ **

_What’s going on? You feel… loose…._

**_Tha’ssss it essssackkklyyy…._ **

_Okay, snakey Shadow mine, look at me…. Open your eyes._

**_Okaaayyy._ **

Erebus opened his eyes, and Ath gasped, hard, unsure what she should do.

She felt Arry focused on her back, and she tried hard not to be mad at the kid. He’d only been trying to have a little fun with her King, let her King have a little fun….

None of them could have known it would do _this_ to him.

_Okay, my Erebus, tell me true. Are your eyes feeling okay?_

**_Yesss. Why?_ **

_They’re awfully big. Like, your pupils are fucking enormous…._

She pushed the image at his aura, felt him recoil slightly inside his mind.

**_That’s not good._ **

_I thought not._

**_It’s dark in here. Should be okay._ **

_Where’d snakey go?_

**_Concentrating. Trying to figure this out. Can’t make them go back…._ **

_You’re not feeling tingly?_

**_No. Loose, like you said. Like I’m half out of my skin. But I think I can…._ **

The unbound power pulled back into his body, and she heard Arry sigh behind her.

**_My eyes?_ **

_Still huge. Blink a little for me?_

He did, the movement slow, deliberate, but his pupils didn’t change. They were absolutely blown, swallowing nearly every iota of his maroon-and-rose irises in midnight expanse.

_Didn’t work. Not a bit. Okay. Let’s just give it time. You sure you’re not feeling drunk?_

**_No. I think I already used it all, when I went…. Melty, can we call it melty? I don’t know…._ **

_Well, that’s good at least._

**_But, Ath…?_ **

_Yeah?_

**_You look different like this…._ **

_Huh?_

He pushed an image into her mind, and she saw her face as he was seeing her in the moment.

Confusion highlighted her features, but it was the colors, the shapes, that seemed… warped, somehow.

Her eyes, sparking with flickering silver lights, twinkling like stars; the lines of her cheeks and nose, blurring, shifting like heat-ripples; a halo of steely-silver shine, lining her entire body, including every strand and flyaway cowlick on her head, in power.

**_Beautiful…._ **

He leaned toward her, and she felt his insistent lust commanding her submission.

And how she wanted to submit, but….

“Ahem. I’m still right here, guys….”

_Arry…._

**_Fuck it…._ **

“ _Why_ are you still here, kid?”

“Geez, Ath. Just thought I’d hang with my main peeps….”

**_Ath, that was mean._ **

_Erebus, he’s teasing…._

“Arry, you can stay. We can behave.”

_Killjoy._

**_Shuddit._ **

“Naw, I’ll just-”

“Hey, looks like a party over here! Can Tamoi and I join you?”

“Phae, probably not the best- **_Fuck!_** ”

Erebus thrashed away, hands covering his eyes, and Ath floated off his lap to give him maneuvering room as she turned to the bulky Smith and lithe Pond-King.

One of the silver-smoke curtains was pulled slightly open in Hephaestus’ night-dark hand, and Ath snarled, eyes locked on his fingers, wondering if she should just rip them off to close this space back to safe darkness for her King’s comfort.

One by one, those fingers released the curtain on their own, and she relaxed a little, shifting down onto the bench beside her King, murmuring to him quietly, trying to ignore her lover’s lovers behind her back.

_Erebus, it’s okay now. Can I see?_

**_Hurts…. Don’t wanna open ‘em…._ **

_Okay, when you feel like you can, let me see, please. Wanna make sure there’s no permanent damage._

**_Okay…._ **

“Come on, you two. Let’s leave them be for now.” A pulse of power, and Ath knew Arry had flickered through his Void rather than touch the curtains again. Three pairs of feet walked away, soft vibrations and heavy thumps marking two Kings and a Forged-being’s retreat from the owner’s booth.

_Oh, my Erebus. You should have listened to me. Just one sip, I said…._

**_It was delicious. I couldn’t help myself…. My Self…._ **

_Really? You’re hurting, and you’re still making that pun…?_

**_It’s my favorite…._ **

She chuckled with him as he giggled weakly. She tugged and twisted his shoulders, his torso, trying to get him back upright against the back of the booth. He went willingly enough, though his eyes were still decidedly, if gently, closed and he seemed unsure of his balance.

_Okay, now, come here to me._

She wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing his head to her left shoulder, stroking over his hair, smoothing down the flyaways that had begun escaping his low queue. His lips molded softly over his mark on her neck, mimicking the dozens of pin-prick coal-dust scars from his claim on her long months before.

**_Thank you, my Truth. Thank you for taking care of me. Holding my heart._ **

_You’re more than welcome, husband. I love you, so very much._

**_My wife…._ **

He hummed softly as she held him, and she started purring out a harmony, letting go the trappings of civility to be what her King needed in this moment….

Sometime later, neither one having moved an inch from their embrace, unwilling to break the spell, something shifted in her King’s voice. It took a slow moment for her to place it, but she realized he was humming their wedding song.

The words echoed through her mind, and she drowned for a time in the memories and emotions he shared with her in truth.

**_…. Was waiting for lightning,_ **

**_Waiting for you…._ **

_Oh, my Erebus…._

* * *

Long minutes had gone by, long minutes of humming pleasure followed by silent loving harmony, before he surfaced gently from the heartbeat of life fulfilled….

**_How I love you…._ **

_…. Lemme see your eyes now?_

**_Mmmmmm…. Okay._ **

He pulled back from her neck, slowly, keeping his eyes closed as her hands shifted to his shoulders. He kept his own around her waist as he hesitantly began to raise his eyelids.

Her features were still warped, different from the usual, as this somehow-in-between vision layered her physical form over her Self’s power; his arousal peaked nearly instantaneously, and it was all he could do to blink slowly, deliberately, focusing all his control on the taste of lemonade.

_Still huge, but I think you’re okay. You can see, right?_

He growled softly, agreeing the only way he could as he struggled to bind his lust.

_Okay. Good. So, earlier, you said you were both kinds of hungry. Are you still, or do we need to wait until tomorrow for the other?_

The unexpected segue to a logistical discussion of necessity broke through his desire like an axe through ice; he wasn’t angry, but he was a little shocked.

**_Whoa. That was sudden…._ **

_Sorry, my Shadow. I was just… worried with your eyes like that. Do you think you can wait?_

**_Yeah. Most likely._ **

_Okay. So, what are we going to do?_

**_I think we should go home._ **

_But it’s your grand opening! That seems unfair!_

**_We could stay, but I don’t think I can even go out there…. So, I don’t see the point anyway…._ **

_And there will be other nights…._

**_All of them…._ **

_For all eternities…. Alright, then. Take me home…._

**_My Queen…._ **

He wrapped her in his arms, tight to his chest, and they disappeared from reality. Instinctively, he opened his eyes when they re-emerged into their house, on their couch; he howled as the soft light from the table lamp by the television blinded him.

“Shit, Erebus! Hang on! Didn’t even think of that!”

“ **Fuck-it-all!** ”

“Just hang on!”

He started laughing a few seconds later; Ath joined him in cackling at the utter ridiculousness as she continued flitting through their house.

“Can’t take me… _anywhere_ , lover!!!!”

“Sure can’t!”

Eventually she came back to him, and he kissed her deeply as the night settled in comforting darkness all around them….

* * *

_Around 10:30 in the evening…._

“Hey, Dad, how’s things?”

Hades looked up from the amber scotch in his glass, smiling at his son’s beaming face.

“Fine, Arry.”

“Where’d Mom go?”

“Bathroom. So, did you find your drink?”

“Eh. Didn’t like it.”

“Good.”

“Nice to have the support….”

Hades chuckled, and he and his son settled into a calm silence as the crowd swirled and jostled all around their dark-maroon booth. Persephone appeared suddenly, and Hades couldn’t help but blush as he saw the changes she’d wrought after disappearing into the bathroom.

Her hair when they left the house earlier had been pinned up carefully in elegant curls. Her black dress had been tied around her waist with a navy-blue sash. Her black-sequined heels, only a couple of inches tall, had been gently peeking under the hem of her dress….

Now….

Her hair was loose, flowing in a waterfall of magenta-shining elegance down her back, over the front of her shoulders, coasting down over one gleaming eye in mystery. Her sash was somehow looped through and around the hems of her skirt, binding it up into scalloped folds of darkness that revealed her legs, muted fuchsia skin glowing through charcoal-dark hosiery. Her feet, utterly miniscule under her curvy calves and the tantalizing swell of her thighs peeking through the curtains of her altered skirt, made it nearly impossible for him to look back up into her mischievous grin and sparking eyes.

“Hades, dance with me….”

“Sweetness, I….”

“Hades. I said, dance with me.”

 _Gulp._ “Yes, my Queen….”

Hades thunked his scotch to the table, ignoring (with an effort) his son’s stifled giggles. He took his Queen’s hand with a flourish of a bow, brushing his lips over her knuckles as he stood.

She shivered at the touch, and he smirked as he swept her away into the crowd, a slow-rocking beat in three-quarter time swelling from the speakers all around the wide-open room.

Spinning lightly on his toes, his ever-present dress shoes bending in supple almost-creaks as the leather accommodated his shift in balance, he brought his Queen near-gliding around his body until she faced him fully. He stared down into her eyes; though she tilted her head up to look at him, that one shining fall of wave-like magenta hair still partially obscured her left eye.

_Mystery._

_Dread and beauty…._

“My sweetness, how utterly enchanting you are….”

“There we go…. Finally…. I thought you were going to be moody and silent all night long…. I thought this quick-change might perk you up!” Her voice was quiet, but the sultry tones of anticipation and longing desire thrummed along his nerves in power only she, only his Queen, had ever wielded over his responses.

“I am so sorry, my beauty. Forgive a foolish old man his maunderings….”

“Only if you sweep me off my feet tonight. I admit, I’m feeling a little… needy….”

“Sweetness, I shall thoroughly endeavor to oblige.”

Though they’d been softly swaying and pacing out the steps of a classic waltz, Hades raised her left hand in his right, signaling her with a gentle pressure below her shoulder-blades with his left. She shifted, placing her weight more on her tiny toes hidden in those sparkling heels, the rounded toe-box more elegant than any pointed-sharpness.

Curved, like her; gentle, like her; still as hard as steel, like her, when she wanted to use all her strength.

He swept her quite off her feet, gliding over the dance floor, weaving in power and grace around the other couples, drawing every eye, his own never leaving her glowing face. His control began to slip, smoke and mist leaving his shoulders and hips in tendrils as they waltzed through the shadows to a steady-rocking beat of wordless harmony.

And the entire time, she smiled at him, simply happy for the pleasure of being with him, being his:

And knowing he was hers, to command, to have, to hold….

“My Queen, shall we…?”

He bent forward, his left knee behind her thighs, and she reclined into the embrace, one tiny foot kicking high in his peripheral vision, her skirt somehow staying in place at mid-thigh: he suspected power at play….

“What about Arry…?” Her whisper was nearly breathless, and he smirked like the devil the mortals had taken to calling him as he chuckled through a reply.

“He can have the house to himself tonight…. What do you say we go to the condo, hmmmm?”

“Oooooooh, we haven’t been there in a _long_ while, Hades….” She giggled, tittered really, as he brought her back to vertical, his hand flared wide on her back in steady support.

“My thoughts exactly, sweetness mine….”

“Yes, let’s!”

Hand in hand, they sped from the dance floor. A quick wink at Arry had the boy collapsing helplessly into groaning fits of laughter as his parents’ beat a hasty retreat, leaving him alone in the nightclub.

“Sweetness, text the boy when we get in the car. Make sure he remembers the rules….”

“Oh, Hades. Look, let’s just see how he does without the reminder tonight. He’s responsible, and I’d much rather be doing something else with my hands once we get in the car.”

“Damn, Kore…. _Damn_ ….”

“You could try to damn me, but I am the Queen, after all….”

_Yep._

_I’m done for…._

They finally clambered into the Aston and Hades forgot his customary reproach for buckled belts as her fingers began picking apart the clasp at his waist….

* * *

_Well. That didn’t take much at all, did it…?_

Arry swiped tears from his eyes as he regained control. He glanced at his father’s empty glass; with a determined sigh, he gripped it in long fingers and rose from the booth, heading straight for the bar. The drus behind the counter spotted him approaching, and with a beaming smile, danced on tiptoes around the nymph and draiad to meet Arry at a free space along the gleaming black not-marble.

“Hey, again! So…. Need a refill? What did you have again, a Pelo?”

“Naw, no more of that…. I was just bringing this up here, save somebody else the hassle. I was actually gonna head out….”

“What, nobody here holding your interest?” A meaningful wink, and Arry smiled gently in acknowledgement of the drus’ intent.

“Sorry. Can’t say as I’m ready for that…. And, honestly…. The only one I’d be interested in isn’t even here, so…. But I do thank you for the compliment; I haven’t ever gotten many….”

“That seems quite impossible, but then, you are young, yeah?”

“Yeah. Quite….”

“Well, let’s just say, if you’re ever interested, you’re _totally_ my type, ya hear?” Teno’s head swung to the right, eyes narrowing at the rowdy satyr bleating for another ale a ways down the bar. “Ope-ah, gotta dash! That one looks thirsty!” The drus with honey-shine eyes sped toward the flushed satyr, a smile on his face easing the impending explosion back with casual effortless ease.

_He’s good at what he does, though, for sure…._

_That in itself is quite attractive, but…._

Arry’s face fell, and he let the Void embrace him, wrapping him in shadow and shine like nothing else in his new Life. He blinked slowly as he re-entered reality in his room at his father’s house, facing his desk with his back to his shelves full of thoughts and dreams….

_Definitely won’t sleep tonight if I don’t get this out…._

He rummaged through the re-purposed umbrella stand, finally snagging the roll of papyrus he wanted in long fingers. The soft cream color looked nearly tan against his bone-white skin; he marveled dimly at the contrast as he coasted his fountain pen tray, complete with ink-well and dauber, on a cushion of mist as he left his room. Power pulled the door closed behind him, and he headed down the moon-shadowed hallway with purpose in every footfall.

Entering the den, he flicked a thought and a touch of energy at the lamps surrounding the drafter’s table in one corner. Memories from Caernes’ first visit to their home so many years before pulsed through him, and he settled into the larger-than-average work-chair with a gentle smile on his face. The lamps were bright on the gleaming oak-shine surface of the angled tabletop, and he brought the cushion cradling his tools to a rest along the shelf at the top of the desk.

The papyrus unrolled slowly under his fingers, cream-colored expanse already marked with black-and-silver inks in heavy lines and soft swirls of shadow and starlight. The scent of tannins and resins and pigments was heavy, drowning his mind as the images behind his eyes demanded release.

Power weighted the upper and lower edges of the curling surface, and his fingers wrapped the shaft of his black-ink pen in supple understanding.

_If only I had seen you more than the once, dear changeling…._

The eyes were most important tonight, he thought. He dipped the nib of the pen with practiced ease into the black-ink well, the thin-cut channel wicking up the liquid under the demand of its osmotic purposes. With a soft scritch on the papyrus, he marked another void along the curve of one wide-opened deep-set eyelid….

_If only…._

_If only I had to courage to ask your Queen for an introduction…._

Another gliding scratch across the rough-soft surface, and another angle at the corner of a silver-shining eye took shape in liquid darkness.

_If only you hadn’t disappeared in mist before I could do more than see you at their wedding…._

Swiping the nib of the pen clean on the dauber in the tray, Arry focused on the image he couldn’t ignore, not even in his dreams.

_Delarkes, dear one…._

_One of these days, we’re gonna have to meet in truth…._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay....
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Impressions?
> 
> Wishes?
> 
> Requests?
> 
> There may be an interlude in the form of a one-shot with Persedes smexiness post-grand-opening - at the condo....
> 
> But for now, I wanted to leave it up to your imaginations. Nothing I was coming up with fit the flow and themes of this chapter.
> 
> An Open Heart:
> 
> Literally, things are getting more open, more touchable, more willing and able, for all our loves here! Erebus is still flirting and seeking new experiences with males - there will be MORE on this theme later, as Heph/Tamoi's relationship deepens. Ath is realizing more and more that she, her Self, is also attractive to others. I am waiting for her to tell me whether she will ever actually want anyone more than Erebus.... It's not looking good, but Teno just seemed a little... hungry... himself, so.... 
> 
> He's a flirt. Deal.
> 
> Speaking of which - Teno's name, I took from "tinasso," a bit of slang terminology from modern Greek - to "toss, jiggle, jolt, yank, shake, or flirt." He's a flirt, he shakes things up....
> 
> Bam....
> 
> Next - Peloponnesian Tea. Yes, this is my rendition for a Long Island Iced Tea - which is PUNNY, because the Peloponnesus is a big-ass peninsula, or an almost-island.... Mwah. I love my brain!
> 
> But, fun story. I don't drink alcohol - I thought LIIT was a lot of alcohol over a base of iced tea. Nope! Swoonie had to rewrite that whole scene, but I wasn't gonna give up the Pelo-Tea for Erebus getting full-on drunk the first time!
> 
> Now, that leads us to his eyes....
> 
> They do get better by the morning. 
> 
> But that melty thing....
> 
> If you have read Hearts of Void's second chapter, you are hereby getting the first tie-in to that!
> 
> You're welcome....
> 
> It's still a long time coming, but....
> 
> It'll be worth it.
> 
> Next chapter:
> 
> A week before Valentine's Day, Khi shakes things up in Erebus' life. Tamoi takes some long-overdue initiative.
> 
> And things are set in motion for those little ones we've all been waiting for....
> 
> Hold on tight, little ones.... We're getting closer and closer to the birth of stars....
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are yogurt to my dark and swirling Self!


	4. Uncle Arry, Darkling Khi, Papa Erebus, and The King of Ponds and Springs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revelations and new understandings stalk our Primordial rulers from unexpected quarters....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Within are themes of:
> 
> Strange-form Intimacy; call-backs to previous incidents of severe depression and self-harm; territorial anxiety; heavy themes of grief and loss and lack; some exhib/voyeur, mild as can be, but still - it borders on the idea of group-sex; and some dominance/submission, including pain-play and mild instances of punishment.
> 
> But also, some toddling Titan-Khi....
> 
> You're welcome....
> 
> This chapter has actually been written since before Christmas. It was nearly the first one I got done. Until now, I haven't really written out-of-sequence like this, so please feel free to let me know if there's any gaps that seem.... wrong....
> 
> Otherwise, enjoy, and I'll see you all in the light sooner or later!
> 
> (Titan-speech glossary included in end-notes, but definitions also given in text for longer-than-average passages.)
> 
> (End-notes are rather hefty today, but have important insights. Please read....)

“So, Vanny, you and Caer got any special plans for Valentine’s day next week?”

“Nunyabidness, Arry. Even if we did, we wouldn’t tell you….”

“Well, heck, Vanny, ya ain’t gotta bite the kid’s head off!”

“Sic’er for me, Caer….”

High-pitched giggles, thumping feet, and then a soft thudding knock at the front door: four pairs of eyes turned to the open doorway into the main hall, and then Vanny made her escape from Caer’s tickling fingers.

“Caer, go get the treats ready, yeah?”

“On it, my butterfly!”

Arry was left on the couch in the den, wide-eyed particolored mystery held gently on his lap as he waited for their ancient heart-source to come in from the foyer.

* * *

_Don’t be so nervous, Erebus, honestly…._

**_I can’t help it…._ **

_It’s not the first time we’ve been back here since the wedding, and it’s certainly not the first time we’ve been here with Arry and Khi both! Even if, ya know, Khi was asleep before Arry left, and what-have-you…._

**_I can’t help it. I just…. I want everything to go so well, and I worry I’m gonna fuck it all up!_ **

_Erebus…._

**_Yes, lover?_ **

_I love you…._

He smiled wryly and let her float upward to kiss the tip of his nose.

**_Hey…._ **

_Yes?_

**_You missed…._ **

He caught her before she could drift all the way down to the porch again, gripping her by the upper arms and hauling her back up within range of his lips. Her mouth opened under his, willing beyond thought, and he bent her a little beneath his body, though his left hand slipped from her arm after breathless moments to knock on the wood of the door.

She pulled away immediately upon hearing the soft thudding sounds, glaring at him.

_Erebus, did you just fucking cockblock me…?_

**_What cock?_ **

They both burst out laughing and were still struggling to stay upright as the door opened to Vanny’s brightly-smiling face.

“Well, you two are in a mood, aren’t ya?”

“ _You have no idea, little sun-bird!”_

“Well, your Young Majesty and darkling Queen await you in the den, King of Shadows. Get your bony white butt in here!”

Erebus straightened immediately, the laughter dying in his throat as he stared at the little sun-bird’s smirking face.

“Don’t talk about my butt….”

Wine-dark lips dropped open and jet-shining eyes were revealed under hastily-arched brows.

“Sorry. I thought I heard that you were being a little more out there these days. I thought I’d flirt for fun a little…. Now that you’re not in my baby bro’s body anymore….”

Erebus’ mind was blank, the words dropping like stones through his Self.

**_Well…._ **

_Hey, my husband. It’s fine by me. I know you’re mine…._

“Sorry, little sunbird. Gut reaction. I’ll get my bony ass in there as soon as your tiny self gets out of the way….”

Vanny laughed loudly, the sound bringing back heart-song memories of his bright little Queen of Life’s Bounty’s smiles and sweeter-than-honey gifts. Erebus kept hold of Ath-naa’s left hand as they followed the little sun-bird into her home.

The brilliant smile he got from Arry had the stardust around his heart sparkling even before his little particolored mystery turned her star-and-flower eyes to look at him. That silver-split mouth dropped open, and tangled plum and moon-silver locks of hair whipped back and forth as Khi couldn’t decide which milk-pale being to focus on.

Arry laughed, the sound windchimes on a summer breeze, and Erebus moved toward the couch as Ath pulled her fingers from his hand. A gentle push against his mind: _Go be with your little ones. I’m going to help Vanny in the kitchen._

**_Fine, my love…._ **

Bending his knees and shifting slightly forward over his hips, Erebus settled to the couch beside Arry, Khi still following his every move from her perch on Arry’s lap. Her eyes were wide, vibrant, a song of power and trust beaming out from that two-toned gaze. Her lips were still hanging open, and tiny pearly teeth peeked from behind them in shadowy mystery.

“Hello, little darkling one….”

“ _Uncle Arrrrrrrryyyyy…?_ ” Khi focused intently on Arry’s bone-white face, the silver-dust swirls of his remade body dancing gently as he took in a breath. Erebus knew the Young Majesty was trying to keep his own voice steady, unwilling to frighten the little one with shock at her seemingly-sudden mastery of Common Speech.

But Erebus felt a surge of triumph: it had been a long time coming, weeks, in fact, but it was working. Khi was picking up the Common Speech with surprising speed now, as long as new words were introduced in the growling-purring-rasping intonations of Titan-speech.

“Yes, Khi?”

“ _Laaaahhhhhh Uncle Errrebusss…._ ”

“What do you mean, I’m _not_ Uncle Erebus?!?!”

Arry snorted out a laugh, and Vanny and Caer and Ath suddenly made their way back into the den. Ath was swiping her hands on a towel, the flour dust poofing off to drift to the floor in tiny clouds of almost-mess. Vanny looked like she wanted to move toward the couch, maybe to correct Khi’s misconception, but Khi surprised them all with her next words: her first full sentence….

“You’rrre _Papa_ Errrebusss….”

The little Queen flung herself off Arry’s lap, and Erebus caught her automatically, cradling the clinging thing to his chest as his heart sent tears thundering through his soul….

**_Papa…._ **

**_Oh, how I would love it to be true…._ **

_Oh, Erebus…._

His eyes locked with his Queen’s, and he tried hard to quell the pain.

But some pains ripped too deep for a little darkling’s love to ease, and Erebus barely managed to kiss the wavery silver line that ran through the messy part on his Khi’s head before he handed her back to Arry’s waiting arms and stood. He went to Ath, bending his head down so his hair swung forward to hide the tears as he passed Vanny and Caer.

His Queen’s arms wrapped around his waist, the towel fluttering to the floor behind him, and he dropped them through his Void and back to their home in their coolly-sunny valley.

* * *

“Wherrre’ssss Papa Errrebusss?”

“He’ll come see you some time soon, little one.”

“But, Uncle Arrrry!”

“Why don’t you go and pick us out a book, Khi, and we’ll read for a while…?”

“ _Hrmph. Laaahhh shhhrrrielll….”_

“You don’t have to understand; I just want to read a book!”

Arry tickled his niece until she thrashed from his lap, squealing and giggling; she toddled her way over to the smaller bookshelf near the tall windows that opened onto the back yard, and Arry tried to smile for his big sister as she came over to sit on the couch next to him.

“Hey…. So, _that_ was different. She’s never called him that before…. Should we do something, you think?”

_He’s not in my head anymore, Vanny…. I don’t know him, sometimes, now…._

“Nah. I think we should just…. Give him time….”

“I mean, should we, like, get her to _not_ call him that…?”

“…. Let’s let him tell us what he wants, later.”

_And here’s hoping he finds out about his little ones, soon…._

“Alright. You okay?”

“I’m fine, Va…. Go on, we’re gonna read… what’s this here…? _Mama Sparrow Flies So High…._ ”

“Oh, dear, be prepared for rhymes…!”

“Always, sister mine….”

Vanny straightened off the couch with a sigh as Caernes turned and headed back out of the den and down the hall. Khi clambered silently up into Arry’s lap, and she snuggled into his chest, wriggling her shoulders and hips to settle herself happily, as he opened the book in front of them. “Alright, little nightbird, here we go….

“ _Once upon a bright spring day,_

_A little sparrow went to play….”_

* * *

Tamoi floated on his back in his pond, letting the early spring sun warm his skin through the shifting shadows of his birch trees’ new leafbuds. He sighed, beyond content, as he danced his fingers along the surface of the water, small ripples jostling his body in counterpoint.

_This…._

_This is nice…._

_Just…._

_Hmmm?_

He bent at the waist, rocking to upright, hovering in the middle of his pond’s embrace. Unlike other beings, he never had to tread water. His power as the First Pond-Guardian, the King of Ponds and Springs, let him manipulate his body in the water’s grasp, very similar to how Erebus and Ath could move through their Voids.

_Speaking of…._

He focused his mind’s reach on the dark-Void house, painted with shifting swirls of stardust, away across the wide expanse of the Valley Erebus called his home. Psychic shields that beamed with rays of starlight were snapping up all around the house, preventing him from feeling too much, but what he did manage to feel….

_Oh, shit…._

_What in the cosmos could make him hurt like that?!?!_

_I gotta help him!_

_Ath! Come on, let down the shields!_

_[[[Not right now, Tamoi…. We need some time….]]]_

_Look, I can help!_

_[[[No, you can’t. You have little ones. He doesn’t….]]]_

_He did…._

_[[[Not of his own Self….]]]_

With a blinding flash, the contact was severed, and Tamoi hovered there in his pond’s embrace, unwilling to admit that the Queen that had claimed his King was right.

Unable to deny that truth….

_Poor thing…._

_Oh, sweet one…._

_You deserve so much._

_Why must the cosmos be so cruel…?_

Tamoi bent double, stroking for the bottom of his pond, examining the small divots that had been his children’s first beds.

_If only there were enough power left…._

But he knew, as all the Firsts he’d encountered over the years knew:

There were only ever a finite amount of little ones’ souls, and when they all had bodies, that was it. No matter how much power you could pour into a molded body of silt and soil, no matter the will and intent you worked into every feature and shape:

All the little ones the cosmos wanted born had been born long ago.

Which is why so many of the Firsts had given up their lives, wasted away intentionally and faded to nothing in the aura-fields that permeated reality….

Made to be creators and parents by a cosmos with a limited supply of destined souls, what else could they do when their purpose was exhausted…?

_Unless you had something else to live for…._

Tamoi’s hand closed around the obsidian blade he’d buried in his pond’s silt long years before. He flipped, kicking off from the bottom and surging back into the soft sunlight of mid-morning. He paddled to the bank and laid the blade out on the new-sprung grass.

_I needed it then…._

His skin twitched as remembered the unsatisfying release he’d relied upon for years, the physical pain drowning, even for brief breaths, the heart-tearing pain of a life empty of love and belonging.

_I don’t need it now…._

Tamoi focused on the blade with all his power as the First Pond-Guardian, the source and heart of still waters and springs burbling up from deep beneath the earth’s surface:

Small blades of water rose from the pond and began dismantling the obsidian sliver of self-destruction, chip by chip, the work of eons of erosion taking only minutes, breathless and full of triumph.

_I will never need it again._

_I have him now. And Hephaestus…._

_And I’ll make sure Erebus knows he never needs to resort to anything like what I did…._

_I lived through that._

_I can help him live through this…._

The last fleck of midnight-pain-made-real dissolved, and Tamoi released his power, the small blades of water falling like dewdrops to the new blades of grass.

_After all, he’s not so different from the rest of us Firsts. He had those little ones to care for, and then nothing else._

_He’s not alone with this._

_As soon as his Queen will let me, I’ll help him through this…._

_I owe him that…._

Tamoi kicked off from the bank, coasting back to the middle of his pond; lacing his fingers behind his head, he floated calmly once more, a lightness in his heart despite the pain and trauma he knew were being hidden behind invisible walls of silver-shining power.

_I’m strong enough to help him now, too…._

* * *

Dimly, Erebus heard Ath speaking to him.

Numbly, he felt her rubbing his back, his hands, his knees, any part of him she could lay a hand on.

The pain drowned him, and he let it….

After all, they were never coming back….

She’d promised him that much….

And they’d never called him _that_ , anyway….

Something shifted through his mind then, a hint of not-memory, and he growled, loud and vicious, as the hope threatened to rip him to pieces.

“Erebus, easy; talk to me, please! What was that for?”

**_“Laaahhh-pooorrrrrhhh…. I-pooorrrrhhh laaahhh-kohhh, sssaaaaa-pooorrrrhhh. Laaahhh-pooorrrrhhh mooorrrr-iiihhh-Khoooroooahhh…. L-aaathhh, kaaathhh-taaa….”_ **

**_[[[“Nothing…. There’s nothing…. It was different for him, different because he’d already existed. There’s nothing left out there for this…. It’s a lie, it has to be.”]]]_ **

“What, Erebus? Common Speech, please….”

He snarled, softly, just a flutter of air past his lips as he tried to make the transition back. He managed it, but now his words just seemed inadequate.

“I was angry because this stupid little thought doesn’t belong here….”

“What little thought? Why stupid?”

“We brought Arry back, like Gaia and Oranus made my….” The tears drowned him again, _that word_ tearing him apart inside with all the promises that could never be held in his heart. “But that was different. He already existed. His Self was there already…. We can’t…. There’s nothing left in the cosmos for us, for me….”

“How do you know…?”

“ _What do you mean?!_ ”

“…. How do you know there aren’t other little ones out there, waiting to be made real…?”

“ _Don’t….”_

“Erebus, you’ve been feeling them, I know you have….”

“ ** _Don’t._** _Don’t give me hope when it could all be torn away…!_ ”

“It won’t be…. Listen to me, please….”

He thrashed up off the couch, his heart thundering through his chest like a comet in the night skies. “No, Ath! No! You know how much this has always meant to me. If it’s true, _why haven’t you told me before?!?!_ ”

She was still on the couch as he backed away from her, her eyes filling with tears as she swallowed past them to answer him.

“Because I wasn’t sure until this morning….”

His knees buckled, and he fell onto the floor, hands clawing through the Void-construct as eons of unfulfilled heart-song dreams rose up to drown him in hope as painful as grief….

She was there, like she always was in the end, pulling him into her arms as he fell apart. The sobs and whimpers he buried in her neck begged her, and he struggled to rein it all in as she began to speak.

“You know I’ve been working through our wedding gifts. There was an envelope a few weeks ago, and I didn’t recognize the handwriting. But it was from Eileithyia, Hera’s daughter, the Goddess of Childbirth. She had visions all through the months before our wedding: visions of little stars that needed Time and Memory to be bound in every way before they could exist in reality. Eily also said that the rings Hephaestus gave us would provide a bridge, but the little stars would need time to find us….

“She said we’d know when they had because the little one we already loved as our own would claim you as her Papa….”

Erebus cried out anew as her words made violent sense along his stardusted Self-coils, pinging and dancing and shimmering with light where no light should exist. The ring around his neck flared hot, nearly burning him, as one of its edges brushed against her own ring-mark, and once again, just like he had the night of their wedding, he thought he heard the laughter of little ones mimicked in a chorus of starstuff….

“She wrote that I needed to keep this to myself until you heard the call in your own Self. I didn’t want to, I even went to her one day last week, while you were with Tamoi…. There was no lie in her words. As much as it hurt, for whatever reason, it had to be this way. I’m so sorry I hurt you, my Erebus. So sorry…. But I’m here, and we’ll bring your little ones to life, the ones you never thought you could have…. Yours, my husband. In every sense….”

He pulled from her then, eyes hungry on hers. He shivered, his whole body trembling as he began to accept the truth in her words….

_“Tuh-aaathhh-taaa?”_

_“Kath-taa, kah-lo-ota…. Kath-taa….”_

He kissed her, forgave her, and the pain turned to bliss as his heart sang for little ones he had never even dreamed of….

He pulled away suddenly, thrashing up from the floor, a thought healing the Void-construct his pain had destroyed. He moved to the back wall of their living room, under the lofted under-side of their bedroom floor above. His hands came up in front of his body, and he pushed his palms against the wall, ignoring her spluttering confusion behind him.

_Little ones…._

_Little ones of mine…!_

_Laaa-kaaahhh!_

_…. Babies…!_

He pushed, and the wall drifted back, a new space opening like a tunnel, a hallway. He walked forward, lengthening the new space, the hallway that he would build his little ones’ bedrooms off of –

Until his power crashed against a barrier of silver light, wrapping their house like a second skin.

**“ _Ath?!?!_ ”**

“Sorry! Give me a second!”

He growled, spinning back around to glare at her as she swiped her hand down, a look of thorough concentration on her face. He nodded once, jaw tight, as he felt the walls come down.

“Thank you.”

He turned back to his new hallway, mind full once again of rapidly-forming plans and dreams, bright-dark and beautiful as a dawn.

“Erebus, what the hell are you doing to our house?!?!”

“Rooms, Ath! Rooms, for babies!”

She laughed loudly, and with a murmured “Well, fine, then, and here I thought we might keep making out….” she quieted, plunking her body down on the arm of the couch closest to him, feeling and watching as he reworked reality into a dream of new life….

* * *

_Whoa. Walls are down._

_Ath?_

_[[[It’s okay, Tamoi. He’ll be okay.]]]_

_Ummmm, what the hell is he doing…?_

_[[[Come see, why don’t ya?]]]_

_…._

_Alright, yeah…._

Tamoi hauled his body out of his pond, muscles bunching with the strain. He slung his loin wrap around his waist and tied the mossy-tether knots at each side before reaching for his himation. Now that he’d filled out his frame a little more, the regular food and loving care of his King having slowly restored his body to the leanly-muscled tone it had borne long eons before: the himation hung perfectly, no longer swallowing him whole.

Walking forward as he fastened the fibula in place at his right shoulder, he wondered at the frantic excitement permeating the house as power thundered in silence through the aura-fields swirling maniacally though the valley they called home.

_What on earth is he making?!_

As Tamoi got closer to the front door, a shudder ran through the ground from the house’s north wall. He stopped, stunned, as the entire wall began molding into a new shape, angling out, the roof shifting over to accommodate the new dimensions in subtle architectural fancy. The swirls of stardust danced, covering the new surface area in shimmering delight.

_Okay, that’s fucking hot…._

_And he’s partly mine…._

_Shit…._

_Hope Ath’s in a mood to share…._

He sped up, combing his fingers through his damp hair, wanting to present an enticing picture, a heady pleasure at the thought of seducing his love stealing over him and pooling in his groin.

_She better be. I need him, too._

He entered the house, closing the front door quietly behind his body.

The new hallway stretched away from the previously bare space under the loft of Erebus’ and Ath’s bedroom. Erebus was nowhere to be seen, but low mumbles and grumbles of concern and concentration echoed slightly through the dark tunnel.

And then a light blossomed, painting the inner wall of the new hallway with golden morning light in a slanted rectangle. The delighted muffled gasp from the hidden room was met with a steely chuckle from Ath’s nearly motionless form perched on the arm of the couch, and Tamoi flinched a little as he felt trapped, caught by the one being he felt truly threatened by.

“Tamoi, you can come the rest of the way in here, you know. You don’t have to hover in the doorway.”

“Can’t hover….” But he moved a little further in, unsettled by the peaceful smile the Queen of Truths threw his way. She’d been nothing but kind to him, but he preferred to keep her at a bit of distance.

He worried his jealousy would flare at the wrong moment and turn her against him, and she’d do something to lock him out of Erebus’ life.

“I only meant-”

**_“Tamoi, is that you?!”_ **

Erebus came pelting out of the doorway in the hall, bright sunlight highlighting his power-blown hair in haloes of shining beauty as he almost crashed shoulder-first into the wall. He managed to correct his trajectory and rushed the long way through normal space to pull Tamoi into a breathless spinning hug.

“Erebus, what the-?”

He broke off in a moan, unable to do anything else, as Erebus kissed him, lips and teeth and tongue the only thing in his world for breathless heartbeats that sped up to dangerously-fast levels, even as Erebus’ own pulse dropped to near-immobility.

He even forgot that Ath, his King’s claimed-Queen, was only feet away….

Erebus finally pulled away, leaning his forehead against Tamoi’s and panting for a few seconds.

“Little ones, Tamoi…. Little ones, of my own…. Gonna have…. I’m making new rooms, wanna come see?!”

Tamoi only nodded. He’d do anything to keep seeing that bright-happy light that the red-eyed King of Shadows couldn’t dim, not today….

Today, he’d found out he was going to have little ones of his own to love and hold and cherish.

And though Tamoi knew it would hurt his own heart, he knew he needed to span the ditches he’d carved with a spade made of jealous, fruitless rage. He knew it would make his King happier still if he took this initiative….

And Tamoi, broken as he may have been for eons, was a coward no longer:

“Ath, come with us?”

The fierce gleam that pulsed out of her body in triumph let him know she knew what he’d done.

The soft gasp his King took into a slightly-trembling chest said the same.

And then Erebus took Tamoi’s right hand in his left, Ath’s left in his right, and together, the three of them went down the hall to examine the beginnings of a Titan-sized nursery….

* * *

Erebus led his Queen and heart-love into the sunlit room, releasing their hands as he dashed through the Void’s edge to the north-west corner.

“We can have bookshelves over here, that way the morning light won’t blind the little one in the crib over there, and then I thought a closet, over there, and then a hanging net for toys, up there on the ceiling, at least until the little one is older and won’t hurt themself, and then we can move it to hang on this wall, and-”

“Erebus, slow down!”

Ath’s smile was brilliant though, and Erebus beamed at her as she moved a little farther into the room.

“That all sounds great, but, honestly, we haven’t even talked about how this is even gonna go down. Or when? I mean, it’s not like we have to wait nine months…. But we do need stuff, and there’s more than rooms to plan…. So, why don’t we talk about when you wanna have this baby, so we have a timeline, here….”

Erebus flicked a glance at Tamoi, who seemed unsure, standing with his arms awkwardly folded over his chest as he looked over the room’s dimensions slowly. “Tamoi, are you okay…?”

“I…. I just…. I never had anything like this for my little ones…. Should I have?”

Ath stepped to the side as Erebus closed the distance. He couldn’t help but push a thought of thanks toward her Self, felt her accept it with calm equanimity and gentle patience.

“I don’t know, Tamoi…. But I think your little ones grew up fine. At least, the few I’ve met in passing….”

“Well, most of those are my little ones’ little ones…. You haven’t met any of my own little ones, the ones I actually made. I would know if you had….”

“Huh?”

“Oh…. They…. They knew how I felt. They couldn’t help it. My boys, they were always watching for you for me….”

Erebus couldn’t stifle the sorrow Tamoi’s words spoke of, but he poured every ounce of love he felt for the one he was first attracted to into his insistent kiss. He willed away the pain, smothered it with tender caring, and gratefully accepted Tamoi’s desperation in return.

He could feel Tamoi’s arousal in the psychic scent that flooded his mind with pond-silt and autumn-breezes, as well as in the obvious erection Tamoi couldn’t seem to keep from grinding into the narrow opening at the top of Erebus’ thighs.

He gasped, unable to break away entirely as Tamoi chased his mouth and forced his tongue past Erebus’ coal-dusted lips. He barely spared a thought to reach for Ath, needing permission even now, with her right there, just feet away….

_My Erebus, I will never stand between you and him, or you and Phae, or you and him and Phae. If you or he need me to leave, I can. I don’t mind…. You’re mine. You always come back to me._

He finally managed to find the strength to push Tamoi from him, hands flat on the midnight-blue encased chest that was always the same temperature as his own chilled skin. “Tamoi, tell me first, what do you want? My Ath, here, or elsewhere, or…?”

Tamoi’s eyes went to Ath, speculative, assessing, and Erebus panicked a little as the silent sizing-up seemed to drag on far too long.

“I want her here. And I want us both to work to please you, Erebus….”

Erebus nearly collapsed, but then his Ath was suddenly there, her Void marking his skin in blazing streaks as she materialized in reality directly under his left arm, against his ribs.

“Easy, my Shadow….”

“ _Tamoi, what-_ ”

“She knows what you like. She knows how to please you in every way. And I only know a little bit…. I want to know more. And you seem determined to, I don’t know, keep from breaking me, keep me from hurting. I need you to know that I’m done running, too. She loves you. So do I. That’s enough.”

_My…._

_My lovers…._

_My loves…._

He nodded, barely able to manage even that without trembling jerkily.

Tamoi moved to support his right side as his legs seemed to have transformed into leg-shaped noodles. Together, his Queen and heart-love walked with him out of the nursery, down the new hallway, and back into the living room. They stopped, facing the couch, and Erebus met Ath’s eyes with another shaky nod.

They moved toward the stairway, and they helped him climb toward their bedroom, even when his legs were beginning to function more fully under his body.

They controlled his body, and he submitted to the both of them in love….

* * *

“Alright, my Erebus, easy now. There ya go, just sit there for a second. Give me and Tamoi a chance to figure something out.”

Ath moved over toward the railing, keeping Erebus, half-slumped on the end of the bed, in her peripheral vision. His hair was hanging over his face, but the swirling coils of his Self that spoke of his power and emotions were oddly peaceful, similar enough to how he felt when he needed to submit that she was almost positive that’s what he was angling for. Tamoi followed her, and she lowered her voice. If Erebus focused, he’d be able to hear and understand, but she somehow knew he wouldn’t. He wanted _them_ to take charge, and she needed to make it clear to her King’s other love what was going to go down.

“Tamoi, are you sure about this? I know you can’t help but dislike me a little…. I don’t mind leaving….”

“No.” Tamoi’s voice was also quiet, a soft ripple of sound that still somehow rang with power. _A King’s voice…. Hmmmmm…._ “I need to understand him, and this is the easiest way. The quickest. I’ve been waiting long enough, and I want him. Now. If you can help me, then that’s what I want.”

_Not desperation._

_Asserting his need, his claim…._

_Alright then, this could work._

“Okay, then how much do you know about domination games…?”

* * *

Erebus hovered along the fringes of the cosmic heartbeat, eyes closed and heartbeat steady-slow, and every so often, he felt a sparkling brush of starstuff against the ring around his neck. His Queen was right: he had been feeling it more and more in the previous few weeks, but he’d ignored it, unwilling to admit that it felt like the tentative first touches of his little ones from so long before….

Now, though….

_Hello, my babies…._

_Can you hear me…?_

The only response was a bouncing shimmer along the lines of his ring, and then a fading sense of connection. He almost panicked, but he realized it would do no good.

_You’re just babies, of course you can’t stay here very long. Go rest, my little ones. We’ll see each other soon…._

_In the light…._

And then warm fingers were combing through his hair, brushing back from his temples, gathering up the long strands and pulling them all around to the right side of his neck. He shivered, a low moan escaping his throat, as fingers and palms the same temperature as his own skin began gliding over his torso, dancing and pressing in random trails until he nearly writhed.

His robe was still on his skin, and he wanted it off, but….

_“Please….”_

“Please, what, Erebus…?”

Tamoi’s voice dripped with power, authority, the soft tones of autumn waters buried under a storm-dark sky’s insistent command.

“ _Please, can I take off my robe…?”_

“You may.”

With a thought, Erebus obeyed. His hands remained folded, trembling in his lap, but his robe dissolved from his skin, top to bottom, until he was bare before his lovers, his loves. Ath’s hands shifted then, having secured the entire bundle of his hair around the right side of his neck and over the front of his chest; she began grinding the heels of her hands into his shoulder-blades, and he arched, bent, under her touch.

His eyes remained closed, but his heart slowed even further as the pleasure they poured into his flesh overwhelmed him.

Warm and cool, hard and soft, here and there, and always moving:

He couldn’t form the words to beg permission, knew he needed permission….

And then they stopped, every touch leaving his skin, and he panted heavily, snarling on every exhale, eyes flying open as he was left wanting.

Tamoi moved directly in front of him, then: still clothed, and the power and demand pouring off the pond-guardian forced Erebus to silence with a glance.

“Turn around, Erebus, and lay down on the bed. Make sure every part of you is on the bed, and fold your hands under your head.”

He obeyed his King, could do nothing else. He shifted, rolling onto his knees and crawling up the bed a few feet. Then he lowered his body to the soft embrace of the Void-sheets, their soft stardust tingling against his sensitized skin in memories of pleasure. He folded his arms, resting his forehead on the uppermost, and breathed into the empty space beneath his face, as calmly as he could.

“You will not turn around.”

_I will not…._

“You will take this pleasure that we give you.”

_I will…._

“And you will guess which of us is doing the giving each time….”

_What…?_

“Do you understand…?”

“Yes, my King….”

Tamoi’s gasp and the flash of rippling power had Erebus melting into the mattress as two pairs of knees began making their way up the bed toward either side of his hips. They moved in such similar ways, he couldn’t focus on one or the other of them individually.

It was like his loves were functioning together, as one being, and he felt trapped in the best way as the motions finally stopped, bracketing his hips in twinned stances of control and power.

The urge to look and see which of them was on which side was palpable, a heady pleasure of its own, but he resisted; the instinct to submit in every way was irresistible. He’d rather die in truth than defy his Queen, or his King….

Neither of them spoke; neither of his dominant lovers made a sound. But one of them shifted, he couldn’t tell which; or maybe it was both of them….

A flash of warmth on his left shoulder-blade and he mewled out a whimper as he felt the wax splattering over his skin in pinging little droplets of sensation. He panted as the sensations eased, and he made his guess.

“ _Tamoi…?_ ”

“Very good, sweetheart….”

Erebus sobbed as cool lips dragged a caress over the bunched muscle of his left shoulder, the pet name ringing with bells and chimes and heart-song drums along every sizzling nerve.

“ _My King, say it again…. Please….”_

“Sweetheart, of course….”

_Never anything so beautiful as that word on his lips…._

“ _Thank you, my King….”_

With an effort, Erebus regained control, settling his body and refusing to tense his back as he waited for the next touch of his loves’ dominance.

And there it was, right in the middle of a steady inhaled breath, shocking him into a ragged gasp as the pain-and-pleasure trailed down from the ribs on his right side to the top of his ass-cheek, a steady-dribbled line of fire-and-lightning that woke him like the touch of ice.

“ _Ath, my Ath?!”_

“Nope….” Her voice was smug, and Erebus growled a little as she chuckled.

Then he had to keen as strong-cool fingers dug into the skin of his ass, just below the end of the wax-trail, and cool breath against the back of his neck had him shivering in the thrill of his King’s display of aggression.

“Make another mistake, and we’ll resort to more drastic measures….”

“Yes, my King.”

“My Erebus, you do remember that you can tell us to stop at any time…. We will never deny you if you need us to stop.”

“Yes, my Queen. I will submit; I want to continue. I want to please my loves….”

Their paired snarling hums had him craving to see them, to see their satisfaction.

He remained with his eyes buried in the darkness of his self-made cage, his forehead resting hard on the bones of his forearm, while he waited for more fire-made-liquid on his skin….

And there it was once more, trailed on an angle from the ribs on his left side, back toward his right ass-cheek, halted in a pooling puddle in the middle of his spine that had him nearly squirming before the puddle stopped spreading.

“ _My Ath, this time?!”_

A cool hand smacked across his left ass-cheek, and he jolted, his head flying off his arms, though he kept his eyes closed tight. He screamed, short but piercing, as his nerves blasted to crazed awareness with the sensation.

“ _No, sweetheart…. Haven’t you figured it out yet…?”_

_“My King, please….”_

“She told me what I needed to know, and she’s letting me claim you, this way…. She doesn’t even have a candle right now….”

“ _Pleassse….”_

“Tell me what you need, sweetheart. Since we sort of surprised you with this, how can we make it up to you…?”

“ _Fuck me....”_

“Well, hell, I can’t say no to that, can I? Ath, you mind taking this?”

“Not in the slightest….”

Erebus moaned and whimpered as the knees that had belonged to his Queen moved off the bed from his right hip, as the knees that were his King’s moved farther down his body, straddling over his own knees before that long body that so matched his in size and shape and form and _being_ leaned over him, slowly; the shift in pressure and weight sent his mind soaring, his senses fleeing as the pleasure of being shadowed over by a love that was fully dominating him for the first time overwhelmed every thought, every bare instinct except submission, yielding, being whatever his King needed….

Tamoi’s chest against his back, pressing him into the mattress, shifting and smearing the half-cooled wax across his sensitized skin, and he pulled his head back, tweaking his neck, but needing to offer everything he was….

_“My King….”_

_“Sweetheart, so good for me…._ I’m sorry I set you up like that; are you sure you’re okay…?”

“ _Yesss…. Jussst want you, want you, pleassse…._ ”

“You’ll have me, sweetheart. Always. As long as you want me…. I love you, Erebus….”

**“ _Kaaah-itaaa tuuuhhh-mooorrr._ ”**

Tamoi gasped, and then cool lips were kissing him everywhere, the back of his neck, his right cheek, his ear, even dangerously close to the silver mark on his neck. But Tamoi knew, as no other being could, what that mark meant, and he carefully, even when he was losing control, avoided it.

And Erebus loved him deeply in that moment.

Ath cleared her throat softly, and a subtle shift in the mattress had Tamoi easing back from violently-chasing kisses all over Erebus head and neck and shoulders; just soft suctions, now, as they both waited for whatever she was going to say or ask.

“Sorry, but…. I caught a little of that…. _My-heart, you, something…_?”

Tamoi chuckled, and Erebus rolled his body a little under his King, earning a punishing grind from Tamoi’s hips as he moved without permission. Erebus stilled, shocked to silence at the feel of Tamoi’s hard cock nearly where he wanted it, but he waited, submitting still.

“He said, _You hold my heart…._ There’s no word for _love_ in Titan-speech or Primordial. Only a few phrases that kind of mean the same thing.”

Ath’s watery sigh was drowned as Tamoi’s right hand snaked its way down between his hips and Erebus’ ass, somehow slicked even though Erebus hadn’t heard a bottle of lube come into play at all. He cried out in pleasure as Tamoi began working that dampness between his thighs, all over the skin of his groin, and Erebus couldn’t help but rock his hips up and down, needing more, craving that pulsing hardness that was bumping over his ass-cheeks as Tamoi prepared him with focused intent.

 _“Please, my King, **please!**_ ”

“Easy, you greedy thing!”

 _“Need it, need you, need-…. **Fuuuuuccccckkkkk….**_ ”

“Holy shit, he’s never made a noise that deep before….”

“Pardon me, Ath, but _shut_ _up_ …!”

Erebus heard their mild argument, but the words made no sense in his mind.

The only thing that mattered was the jolting of Tamoi’s hips against his ass, the dragging pull-and-push between his legs, the building spiraling swirling maelstrom of sensation that was draining everything he was to the few inches of skin at the junction where his hips met his thighs.

He knew he was moving, but he couldn’t stop himself. He unfolded his arms, planting his hands in the mattress, pushing his torso up and lowering his head on a nearly-boneless neck. Tamoi’s chest pressed harder into his back as he did, and that was _exactly_ what he needed, so he shifted his weight, bringing his hips to a point directly above his knees. He felt Tamoi adjusting to the new position, and though he was defying his King’s command, he couldn’t stop.

He needed to take as much as he could, and he needed it harder and faster than he was getting it….

He began rocking back and forth, hands and knees anchor points as he begged without words for more. Tamoi’s cock slid in and out between his legs, and then Tamoi finally, _finally_ seemed to get the message.

Long fingers locked around Erebus’ waist, nearly touching at the tips of his longest digits and thumbs, and cool air coasted over the wax-smeared skin of his back as Tamoi straightened more fully. A few minor adjustments of Tamoi’s knees beside Erebus’ own, and then those hands and narrow hips were working together to fuck Erebus faster, harder, _more_ than he’d ever been fucked before.

Even when his Queen unleashed with her strap-on; even when he rocked his own body into a frenzy atop Phae’s massive shaft of midnight-jet:

This was perfection, and Erebus gasped with every pounding thrust, mewled with every angled jolt to the divot at the front of his groin….

It couldn’t last, but that was fine:

He’d die if this went on much longer….

He whimpered, unable to find the words; he may have defied his King’s command, but he still needed the permission, still needed to submit in some small way, needed to be claimed, needed….

“ _Come, Erebus; let go…._ ”

So he did.

He slammed his ass back against Tamoi’s hips, his back arched high, his shoulders stretched in their sockets as his hands clenched in the mattress beneath him.

Power exploded out of him, darkening the room to a midnight-black, devoid of light, of sound, of thought or feeling:

The only thing that mattered, the only reality Erebus knew was the twitching thing between his legs and the pulsing waves of pure sensation that broke him to little more than a vessel for their rapacious greed in his flesh.

He felt warm spurts that dribbled in trickles and rivulets between thighs, and though there was a hint of a scent that called to him, he wasn’t quite _there_ enough to respond….

Nothing existed except the orgasm he’d waited eons for, the one that claimed him, that told him beyond any doubt that he belonged to Tamoi as much as he could.

They were perfectly matched in every physical way, even beyond the words to say what was needed. And though his Self belonged to the Queen waiting patiently, somewhere in this darkness of his pleasure’s release, he wouldn’t keep the one who called him _sweetheart_ at a distance any longer.

Tamoi was strong enough now to claim what he wanted, as much as he could, and who was the King of Self to deny the truth of another’s soul…?

The walls of their home finally caught up in draining the power he’d unleashed as he found his climax, and light finally broke through in soft rays as the heavy darkness faded to energy only. Tamoi’s hands pushed, guiding him gently down, and then warm hands, too, were helping ease him back to this life. Long fingers of cool and light, soft palms of damp and dry:

His loves, the ones who held his heart between them:

He purred softly as they started cleaning the wax and Tamoi’s spend from the various regions of his skin. And then his Queen’s fingers were brushing along his hairline, and a look of wonder was in her silver-gleaming eyes as she moved into his line-of-sight.

“Erebus, you’re sweating…. You’ve never done that before….”

Tamoi’s smug chuckle had him smiling in peaceful bliss as he drifted deeper into the flow of the cosmic heartbeat, his humming purrs still tethering him to reality as his loves cleaned him and held him close between their bodies as the noon passed in brightness outside their home….

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of notes - please bear with me....
> 
> Okay: first -  
> Tamoi, once again, LOVES Erebus as the King he would have been with had things not happened the way they are. However, with Phae's love, Tamoi is settling a little more into loving Erebus as he is NOW, versus the Shadow that no longer exists.  
> Tamoi wants to rewrite the way things can never be into something they claim, for their own Selfs, NOW....  
> So he does.  
> And yes, while this is technically "group sex," Ath is giving them what space she can for this "claiming."  
> We're getting deeper and deeper into Erebus' sub-mentality here. He instinctively must submit - it's how he's made, part of being lo-ota to Ath. We saw his need, desperate and primal, to submit when they merged to bring Arry back. That need is still a major part of his Self; it will never really go away. But, with Tamoi, he was able to defy a little more, be a little bratty; even though Tamoi chose not to punish when Erebus rocked up onto hand-and-knees, Erebus knew what he was doing, and he was staking a claim, of sorts, as well.... And regarding the sweating - this is both from just the overwhelming claim-induced Climax Tamoi fucked him through, and also that he's more "alive" now that he's got more than a few months of feeding under his proverbial belt....  
> We have not peeled back all the layers of our Shadow-King's bedroom proclivities, yet. There's still a few more....  
> And they are delishous, if I do say so my Self....  
> Next - regarding Eily's note. You may remember Heph, in the wedding, deciding to let Eily tell them. He has kept that secret for the ensuing couple of months, as he does best, waiting for Erebus to find out - Eily did tell Heph, later, that she left the note with the wedding presents.  
> And what a present it is....  
> Now, Khi - we know Vanny was about a month or two pregnant when Arry lost his body on his 17th birthday, the Autumn Equinox. Khi was therefore born, on schedule, sometime a little before the Summer Solstice. This had her being around 3 months old when Arry comes back, 6 months old at the Wedding, and now, mid-February, she's around 9 months old.  
> And she's talking, and walking, and making Void-inspired leaps of mental clarity.  
> Khi is steadily showing she's not following anyone's ideas of developmental stages but her own.  
> And I love her already....  
> Uncle Arry is feeling a little out-of-Erebus'-loop these days. Erebus is becoming Other than he always was anyway, with Ath and Tamoi and Phae at his heart's-sides and Life Itself fueling his power more than ever. The gulf between the Young Majesty and his heart-source is growing, and Arry isn't quite sure where that will leave them in the end. Also, he's obviously worried for Erebus, because that poor King doesn't yet know about his cosmos-promised little ones....  
> Things are lining up, though.... Finally....  
> Okay - all our Titan-speech newness today: Let's start with the big one - Erebus' rant when he gets back to the house with Ath.  
> “Lah-porrh…. I-porrh lah-koh, saa-porrh. Lah-porrh morr-ih-Khoroah…. L-ath, kath-taa….”  
> Literally, this all means : "Nothing. In-this-instance, it-is-different, he-already-existed. There-is-nothing held-in-the-Cosmos-Itself.... A-lie, my-truth-in-words."  
> Porrh can be best explained as meaning "existence." Hence, Lah-poorh is "not-in-existence," nothing.  
> "I-porrh" and "morr-ih" introduce our first preposition - In. Again, the fluid nature of Titan-speech dictates that we have a breathy-intonation between morr and Khoroah, but a simple flow between I and porrh. I-porrh is essentially "in this moment." "morr-ih" means "held in" or "kept in."  
> Lah-koh is another new construct for us. It is a combination of the negative and I. Me. My Self. In other words - not-me. This is how we denote difference or Other in Titan-speech. It is not meant to denote "us vs them" or bigoted thinking. It is just a literal interpretation of something different from a being as BEING different from them....  
> Saa is a new pronoun - it essentially refers to a context-based "he" or "him." In this case, Erebus is thinking of Arry....  
> And lastly for this passage - Khoroah. This is another Primordial Throwback, meaning literally the Cosmos Itself, or pre-reality itself. There will be more with Khoroah later. I promise. It's too good a concept to leave it hang.  
> And finally, “Kaaah-itaaa tuuuhhh-mooorrr.”  
> My-heart, you hold.  
> There is no word for Love in Titan or Primordial, but we say it the best we can, with shadows of our true feelings....  
> As Always, Comments, kudos, and all are always yogurt to my dark-shadow Self!  
> Next chapter - the aftermath of Tamoi's claim on Erebus, and Ath and Erebus begin truly planning for his little ones' arrivals.... And Phae has a surprise for Papa Erebus, now that he knows....  
> This is Planning for Starlings....


	5. Planning for Starlings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Within, we have themes of:
> 
> Strange-form Intimacy. Duh.   
> Anxiety. Duh.   
> Sensory overload and the aftermath thereof. Duh.   
> Some body worship and ogling. Duh.   
> Some possessive tendencies and feral demands and claims. Duh.   
> A little pain-play and metaphysical climax. Duh....
> 
> I mean, why do I even bother warning y'all with this stuff?
> 
> THIS IS WHAT YOU'RE HERE FOR!
> 
> But for real. 
> 
> There's also some themes of pure anger and almost-hate toward the end. It ends well, but it's a little intense for a smidgeon....
> 
> Ahem. 
> 
> This chapter picks up RIGHT AFTER the end of the previous chapter. You may want a re-read. Go. Indulge. 
> 
> I'll be here....

The sun was bright outside the dark-shadow house painted with swirling tails of stardust. The curtains of silver-smoke muted the glow from the large window-wall across the open air beyond the railing, but truly, Tamoi wouldn’t have cared if it was bright, or dark, or anything at all.

Rain.

Shine.

Clouds.

Tornados and blizzards.

It didn’t matter, because his almost-claimed King’s head was on his chest as he lay reclined on pillows in the massive bed, and the Queen that claimed his sweetheart was tracing soft patterns over the coal-dusted patches left by the wax from earlier on that bone-white leanly-muscled back.

They’d pleased the King of Shadows well, and that was all that mattered….

“Sweetheart, you okay in there…?”

A soft hum was all he got in reply, the same as he’d gotten for nearly an hour now as Erebus drifted in and out of the depths of the heartbeat of the cosmos. They’d been able to shift and reposition the near-boneless Titan King to his current immobile state, but it had been a long time now that he’d been like this, much longer than either he or Ath could remember Erebus being so insensate after sex.

He looked in silver-shining eyes again and shrugged slightly. The Queen of Truths flattened her hand over Erebus’ right shoulder-blade as she drew in a breath.

“My Erebus, you’re worrying us a bit. Can you come back to us…?”

An inquisitive tone in that hum, and Erebus’ head shifted a little over Tamoi’s heart.

“That’s it, sweetheart. We just want to make sure you’re okay….”

“Mmmmmm uh-kaaaayyy….”

Tamoi craned his head, striving for an angle where he could see a little more of Erebus’ face. He’d already loosened the tie that Ath had bound around Erebus’ thick mane of milky hair, and he brushed a few final strands off Erebus’ cool cheek with gentle fingertips as the bone-white being licked his lips and opened his eyes to blink slowly into the fresh-feeling air of the power-drained bedroom space.

Ath leaned over, her hand still maintaining careful contact on Erebus’ back, but she too found an angle where she could look more closely at their King.

“Hey, my Shadow…. You feeling good…? Can’t quite tell, you’re drifting a little too far for me to follow, my husband….”

Erebus licked his lips again, rubbing his cheek against Tamoi’s chest and flexing his shoulder-blade under Ath’s hand as he rolled his shoulders a bit. **_“Shaaah…. Shaaah, koh…. Kooohhh-trell, kaaah-taaa….”_**

“What, Erebus…?”

“I got it, Ath. He said yes, he’s feeling good, but he’s sorry, his words….”

“I have got to try harder on Titanspeech; this is getting ridiculous….” Her face was marked with indignant attitude between her eyebrows, but the irritation melted away with the next words that floated up between them on a cool breath from Erebus’ slowly-moving mouth.

“Ath, my love…. I’m sorry….”

“Hey, there you are!”

“It just…. I needed a minute….”

Tamoi laughed, jostling Erebus’ head on his chest as his heart lurched with the humor. “A minute? Sweetheart, you were out for an hour….!”

“No, I meant, for my brain to catch back up to this tongue….” Erebus turned his head, a soft kiss marking Tamoi’s chest in cold fire, and he stopped laughing as his sweetheart put space between their bodies, leaning up and away. “I didn’t mean to scare you both….”

“So, you’re okay then?” Tamoi was feeling a little guilty now at how he’d used his heart-love, at how he’d nearly tortured him before rutting him like a beast.

“Yes, dear one…. More than okay. Thank you for claiming me that way….” Erebus shifted forward, kissing Tamoi as gently as ever, but there was a new hint of contentment in this kiss, something that had never been there before.

Somehow, Tamoi’s choice had turned out exactly as he’d hoped, and everything was falling into place.

He knew that he belonged to Erebus, that he always had.

But now, he knew that Erebus belonged to him, too….

And that Erebus knew that….

And wasn’t that a delicious thought, that Tamoi owned a piece of the Primordial Titan his own Self…?

_Power…._

Tamoi reveled in that kiss, the one he’d been waiting millenniums for without a breath of a hope, and the world fell away in the blissful peace of claiming what he’d been so long denied….

* * *

Erebus let his lips slide from Tamoi’s, bringing one hand up to cup around a steel-blue cheek in deep feeling.

_My King…._

“Thank you, Tamoi…. I love you….”

“I love you, sweetheart…. I…. I hate to fuck and fly, but I’m gonna head back out to my pond and chill for a bit. I’m supposed to see Phae tonight, so…. Need a nap myself, I think….”

Erebus chuckled, pulling away a little more. “Yeah, you probably do….”

Tamoi laughed, loud, his stomach rolling under Erebus’ other hand, and the King of Shadows flexed his fingers against Tamoi’s cheek in gentle companionship. He finally registered his Ath’s hand still over his shoulder-blade, and he leaned back into the touch.

Tamoi pecked a gentle kiss on Erebus’ cheek and then rolled off the bed, snagging his himation from where it had been laid draped over the open door of the wardrobe. Erebus hummed in appreciation of the lines of Tamoi’s body, leaning farther back into Ath’s embrace as The King of Ponds and Springs flaunted just a little bit for his enjoyment, supple arms and angled ribs and toned thighs revealed and obscured and accented as Tamoi finished securing the fibula over his left pec.

“Have a good time with your Queen, Erebus. And Ath…?”

A silver-soft hum threaded the air from over Erebus’ left ear, and he purred as the sound stoked his desire.

“…. Thanks. I…. I can do better. I’ll try to be more of a friend, okay?”

“…. I appreciate that, Tam. Very much.”

“Alright, bye, you two. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help y’all get ready for the little ones!”

Tamoi faded with a rippling shimmer, water-shine coursing over his entire body from toes to hairline in a golden-silver wash of power.

**_“Laaa-kaaahhh….”_ **

“Yes, my Erebus…. Little ones….”

Erebus rolled suddenly, his arms wrapping tight around Ath’s chest as he spun, forcing her beneath him to the bed. His lips went unerringly to her neck, her cheek, her collarbones: anywhere and everywhere, as his Hunter’s lust boiled over, needing, craving, claiming her anew with every touch.

She gasped, and he reveled in the sound, in the heady throb of knowing he was the cause of her pleasure, and he alone….

Her hands found their trembling way to the sides of his head, fingers threading through wispy strands and half-snarled locks; she pushed a little, almost pulling his hair in gentle request, and he stopped his worship of her skin. Pulling back, he looked in her silver-gleaming eyes, and he knew, in the depths of his soul and Self, where he belonged.

The few strands of hair captured in her grasp weren’t enough to keep the rest of his hair from shutting them away from reality all around, moon-bright mimicry of their bed’s silver-smoke curtains. The world narrowed to the space between their faces, the Omega-lines of their wedding-rings cupping the base of their necks in glinting dark-on-silver and silver-on-pale. His eyes shed bloody light on her features, power and promise shining out of him like nothing else in his existence, one of the only lights untouched by his shadowy nature when he drifted deep in the river of his love for her Self and power and….

 _Yes_.

_Her body, too…._

Slowly, he brought his lips back to hers, soft tears of inexpressible emotion forcing his eyes closed as he kissed her once more. Her fingers released his hair as she sighed into his mouth, and then her forearms, supple and smooth and stronger than steel cables, were wrapped behind his neck, tingling sparks of power lighting along his skin where she brushed against his ring. She bound him to her, to their kiss, as his hair puddled around her head and shoulders, and he shivered with a soft orgasm as his Self responded to her unspoken command for his submission.

The Lord of Time’s Passing, Time’s Existence Itself, quite lost track of the minutes he spent kissing his Queen, his body laid over hers, her hips beneath his waist, the lines of her ribs brushing against his own, her feet dancing in slowly-tickling touches over his calves and the backs of his knees. Eventually, or perhaps too soon, the instincts born of his too-fertile nature asserted their Selfs against his semi-conscious will, and he began rocking his lower body against her, his ass and thighs tightening with each dipping motion as he pushed against her body, needing touch, pressure, sensation in the valley of skin and muscle at the apex of his thighs.

She smiled into his soft-sliding lips, and he huffed out a little breath of needy irritation as she shoved her head back into the mattress slightly. His eyes opened halfway as his body began humming with expectation and desire’s strident call.

He knew he’d never seen anything so beautiful as her silver-gleaming eyes watching for his reactions as her power licked up and down along her body, baring her skin beneath his own nakedness, the snapping sparks of almost-unmaking thrashing his lust to a frenzy nearly unsustainable.

He growled, telling her how much he loved her with the only sense he had in that moment, and she snarled in reply as her knee bent beneath him.

One of her hands left him then, reaching into the air beside their bodies. He couldn’t see it through the curtain of his hair around their heads, but he felt the flash of her power as she reached through her Void for _something_ for their play. He lowered his head once more, trusting whatever she was planning, and he licked a hard stripe up from her collarbone, taking special care to pass directly over his marks on the bare skin of her neck, all the way to her ear before he began nipping and sucking on the soft-supple lobe.

The way her breathing stuttered was a song of pleasure, and he chuckled as he strove to thoroughly worship the tiny bit of flesh he’d captured between his lips, his forearms resting alongside her head, supporting his body, his hands caressing and petting through her mussed silver-shining har….

Until a wash of almost-minty scent exploded into the air between them from away down the long lines of their bodies, and he felt her arm shifting and writhing as she coated the skin of her knee with the tingly-sensation lube.

He sniffed hard, inhaling that scent, and felt his mind go utterly blank with shock as her hands planted themselves firmly over the trembling skin of his ass-cheeks. He released her earlobe with a soft smacking sound and shuddered out a rush of a sigh.

**_“Oh, bloody hell….”_ **

She chuckled, dark and mischievous and _wicked_ beyond compare, and then he was lost….

* * *

Ath chuckled, pressing downward on shuddering white ass-cheeks, and felt the thrill of control over a being so much more powerful than anything in reality’s current age as her husband whimpered under her insistence. She rocked her foot just slightly against the mattress as she finally got his groin aligned along her peaked knee, settling herself for the ride. His whimper shifted to a snarling hum, a purring growl of pleasure and desire, and his eyes drifted half-closed from the wide-opened shock of moments before. His scent, seasons-deep and ocean-dark, rocked high in the moist-cool air pulsing between their bodies as she forced him into a steady rhythm over her tingling bony-thin knee.

She chuckled, and then she hummed with him as he gave her this control she craved.

She was his Queen, and she would give him pleasure once again….

Nearly seven long months since they’d gone on that first date with his Phae.

Five long months since he’d begun enjoying Tamoi’s company as well.

But all throughout, only she shared these special pleasures with him: only she treated him to the dry-humping they’d so long ago discovered he enjoyed. Only for her would he submit to the mentholated lube: he’d made that perfectly clear even before their wedding….

Only for her would his eyes shine like that, like nothing else in his shadow-bound power: only her, and she loved him all the deeper for that knowledge….

She forced him to a faster pace, her hands nearly clawing into his ass, dimpling that milk-white skin with her silver-shining fingertips as his mouth fell slack with the building pleasure.

Only for her would he _take_ like this; only for her, and always….

“My Erebus, husband mine, you’re close, aren’t you…?”

His snarl was thunder in this smaller realm bound within his curtain-falling hair, and she bared her teeth in reply, waiting until his eyes focused just that little bit more, letting her know he was paying attention with a slightly-steadier breath.

“Then take your pleasure, my King. Take it, and me with you….”

She released her grip on his ass, letting her hands slip to cup around the backs of his thighs as he planted his hands in the mattress beside her shoulders. The silver-web barriers around her mind, those surface shields that protected her and him both from an unintended brush of her too-bright power against his shadowed Self: she lowered them carefully, reaching with the outermost fringes of her ray-like strength for his boiling, coiling cloud of lusty darkness.

She drowned in the heady pleasure he took from his movements over her skin: she felt the tingle on her knee and in his groin, together, at once; the tensing and trembling of his thighs and abdomen she felt with her own hands on his body and as if it were her own Self atop another, riding steadily toward the plunging almost-death of release; the way his hair trickled and tickled over her shoulders, she felt it and the way the slight tensions pulled on the skin of his scalp; their feet, all four, toes curling and sliding slightly back and forth across the not-fabric stardust-darkness of their bedsheets; her back, flat on the mattress, beginning to be too warm, even as his own back arched and grew deathly cold in the diffuse noontime light of their lofted bedroom….

Every sensation, entering his body and therefore hers equally, without filter or compromise in their minds. Fully alive, he had no conscious thoughts: only sensations, and so many of them, it was nearly impossible to function enough to keep chasing the ones at the core of his body, the ones that somehow almost drowned the others, even though _those_ never faded from his feral-focused awareness.

She tensed with him as the muscles in his groin began spasming, throwing off his rhythm. She felt her own body beginning to react, without a single touch, as she shared his climax with him, buried in his Self as deeply as she could get without hurting him.

Their thighs locking to stiffness; heads thrown back on deeply-arching necks – even though her own pressed too-hard into the mattress and scraped a little harshly; her fingers digging into his thighs as his own dug into the sheets; chests shuddering as if with fever or chill, air trapped as the climax ripped through them in savage intensity and power.

She felt the slight withdrawing as he pulled from her psychic touch just before the utter peak of their release; her power exploded from her, a nova of light as roiling darkness billowed from his own flesh, and he shielded his Self and mind as best he could from her own loss of control. She still felt it, though, as her power crashed against him; neither he nor she had been quite swift enough or in control enough to keep him from pain this time….

But she also knew, beyond any doubt or fear, that he reveled in this pain even as he cringed from it:

He loved that she could hurt him, craved that domination even when it was utterly unintentional.

Such a delightful submissive, her King of Shadows….

He finally went a little boneless, shoulder-joints locking to keep him from completely falling atop her, and she lowered her knee like the boiled noodle her leg probably resembled as his own knees slid apart a few inches from their positions by her hips.

His head rocked back downward as she canted hers back up; the half-smile on his face was a deep-winter morning, fresh snow blanketing the world in soft contentment as a fire was stoked back to life in the hearth….

**_Thank you, my love…._ **

_Thank you for sharing that with me…._

Ath rolled a little as he shifted and brought his body to the mattress on her right side. She scootched and wriggled until she was curled against his chest, until he shoved her hips into position against his own and brought his leg up over her hip to bind her there. Her head resting on his left bicep, his left hand stroking down her spine with limp fingers, his right arm over her ribcage like his leg over her hips.

She snuggled against him, her fingers splayed in soft possession over the scars on his bare chest, and she hummed softly as he panted deeply and his heart rocked back up into a steady rhythm from the death-slow pace it had been measuring out while he broke under the pleasure of their release….

_Now, my Shadow, when you’re ready, let’s talk about when you want to have your first baby, hmmmm?_

The purr she got in reply was as melodic as any trilling sunbird ever dreamed their voice could sound….

* * *

Long minutes passed in simple peace, peace pulled from the heartbeat of the cosmos like nothing in any existence not their own. Erebus drifted, his heart pacing out a drum-song call of the aftermath of pleasure’s power, as the sun drifted a little lower behind their house; long shadows grew longer over their front lawn from the angles and planes of their house.

Different now, new angles marking the left-side lines of darkness over the grey-green-tawny grasses of almost-spring….

New angles from the expansion he’d begun so little a time ago this bright, bright day….

“Ath, my love, when do _you_ want to have our baby…?”

She chuckled, the trilling lightness sparkling against his heart. “Well, I think the main thing is, it has to be far enough out so that we have time to prepare absolutely everything. Cause, I mean, we’re here, in the mortal realm, and I know for a damn fact you are not going to want to leave your baby and go on a grocery trip or anything for days, or weeks…. On top of that, logically, we have the strength to shield a baby like we do Phae and Tamoi when we go through the Void, but I know you’d be a little too anxious for that right at the start, so essentially, we’ll be rather homebound for a while. So, we need time to prepare ourselves, not just for the baby. I’d say we need at least 3 weeks…. Maybe a month or so?”

His mind raced through the implications, and then, as if a key in a lock, he realized he knew the exact right day for this new beginning.

“The equinox, love….”

“Autumn? And on Arry’s birthday?! That’s a little mean, Erebus….”

“No….! The spring….”

“Ohhhhh…. Five weeks, huh?” He hummed as he felt her cock her head against his upper-arm, knew she was giving it the same thoughtful consideration that had led him to the realization of the date’s perfection. “I see…. New beginnings. Rebirth.”

“New light from darkness….”

She kissed him sweetly on the long line of the scar left by his poisoning, and he gasped softly as the sensation thrashed through his body.

“It’s perfect, my Shadow. Utterly perfect. And that should be plenty of time. Five weeks….”

They drifted back to silence, processing everything with a strange-seeming feeling of surreality. Until he realized there was one more thing he _knew_ he wanted, needed, and he couldn’t wait….

“Ath…. I want Phae to make my babies a crib….”

“Babies…?”

He smiled sheepishly. “Well, one baby, first. But the crib, it would last, you know….”

“I know. Just making sure we’re on the same page!”

They laughed together, and sighed as their bodies jostled against one another in pure physical sensation and aura-based joyful abandon.

“Well, we are. But I want him to make it. He makes such beautiful things, and I can’t think of anyone better to make something safe and sturdy and incredible for my babies….”

“What am I, then, a bumbling oaf…?”

He narrowed his eyes at her, trying to keep the panic at bay by sheer willpower as he attempted to determine if she was teasing or serious.

“Uhm…. You’re teasing, right, my love?”

“Yes. He’s always been quite the gifted artisan; I’d love the babies to have a crib made by the Smith of Olympus himself.”

“Oh, good, I got it right that time!” He arched his neck, kissing her softly between her brows as she giggled.

“You’re getting much better at that, Erebus! I’m proud of you.”

“Mmmmmhmmmm.” He pulled his lips from her skin, his eyes flying wide open as another realization hit him like a four-span of chariot horses. “Ath, Tamoi is going to see Phae this evening.”

“That is what he said…. Is this a problem?” He felt her territorial savagery taking notice of his stress, so he rushed through the words so she wouldn’t completely fly off the handle for something this easy to remedy.

“I don’t want Tamoi telling Phae about my babies before I get the chance to, is all, and I didn’t tell him it was supposed to be a secret, I don’t know if I want it to be a secret, but I have to go tell Phae, now, before Tamoi has a chance to mess this up!”

He rolled away from her, standing naked beside the bed and panting heavily as he finished his rushing explanation.

“Erebus, you could just ask Tamoi _not_ to tell Phae….”

“No, wanna tell him now, wanna give him as much time as possible to make a beautiful crib, Ath!”

“Okay, okay, then! Begone! But put some damn clothes on!”

She cackled, and he cocked his head, thinking again. The image was there in his mind now, wouldn’t go away, and he turned to the mirror hanging on the wall beside their bedroom door, narrowing his eyes at his reflection, bony lines and gentle curves and all paler than snow.

“Erebus, what are you thinking so hard about?”

He licked his lips and tried to find the words to explain this urge, this spontaneous need for….

“I want to try something different. Just…. Show me that first thing you wanted me to wear for the homecoming again?”

“The just pants thing?!”

“Mmmmmm….” She thrust the vision into his mind, and he grimaced slightly as her enthusiasm flared too-bright against his Self. “Careful, lover.”

“Sorry, but you got _me_ hungry, now, husband….” She prowled into the frame of the reflection, behind him still and on the bed as before, but moving like a cat, a hunter herself, as she waited for him to dress in the way she’d craved for months without a hope.

“Let me try….”

He fixed the image in his mind, the pants she wanted him to don, the shirt he thought might fit; without moving his hands or head or any other portion of his flesh, he let his power coat his skin in darkness.

Skin-tight leggings, so like hers, but blacker than the shadows under a nothing-moon: from the narrowest nip at the top of his hips to the jutting bones in his ankles, his legs disappeared beneath the not-fabric. The image was rather alien to him, so used to his robe’s skirts and trains, but as always, he would try anything once….

His shirt, however, was his own creation. Very much in shape like the T-shirt Delarkes had worn the last time they’d come for a visit before his poisoning, on the day his Queen had helped him see the truth of his sexuality, it clung across his chest and upper arms; the length, however, bunched and rippled over the waistband of his Void-leggings, lending a sense of softness to the hard lines of his torso. The sleeves clung to his arms, mid-way to his elbows, and he rolled his shoulders a little to settle the gussets in the valleys beneath them….

His hair floofed a little in the making of his shirt, settling in stringy strands over his shoulders and down the planes of his back. He brought his hands up, then, staring in the mirror at his own eyes, refusing to look down his body as he gathered all of his hair into a bundle at the lowest point of his neck. Using Void-manipulation and deft fingers together, he wound the long strands all around themselves, finally binding them into a single bun on the back of his head with a blacker-than-night Void-ribbon. The tails of the almost-silk he left loose, and as he turned his head to view his handiwork in the mirror, the tips of his ears peeked at him through the pulled-tight gathers of milky locks, coal-dusted angles of bone-white contrasting in strange mystery and ethereal shape. The curving silver line of his ring, and the glinting half-moon marks Ath had given him more than six months before, glinted along the exposed skin of his neck, a testament to his love and life with the one who held his heart in her own….

He finally shifted his focus to the entire image he presented in the six foot tall mirror.

And his wife’s thundering snarl had him realizing he might have made a mistake in this suddenly-necessary choice of appearance.

_The best kind of mistake…._

“Erebus, you’re wearing those pants tonight. That is a damned fucking _Queen’s command, do you understand me?!”_

He turned to face her; the feral hunger in her eyes had him weak in the knees, but his own Hunter surfaced suddenly, smug and victorious as he opened his mouth.

“Can’t have nearly as much fun if the pants are still on, lover mine….”

“Fuck that. The pants stay on. We’ll just dissolve the crotch, dammit….”

He spluttered as his heart stopped beating with the shock….

She smirked, vicious in her victory, and his Hunter faded with a hummingly-contented purr as he submitted to her creativity.

“Now, get that gorgeous ass to your Phae and tell him about your babies, and then get that ass back here to me…. I’m feeling rather needy, my Erebus….”

He blushed, heavily, feeling the chill sweep over his cheekbones as the shadows within his flesh writhed in slight embarrassment. “Ath, I thought I was the ass-man….”

“You are. But dammit, honey, them pants, I swear to anything out there…. I knew you’d look incredible in-”

“ _Honey…?_ ”

The greedy light shining from her silver eyes died in an instant as he breathed out that whisper of a question.

“Oh. Um. Yes, I suppose I did say that…. Is that oka-?”

He jumped through the Void, emerging kneeling beside the bed, his hands on her cheeks and his lips over hers, shutting down the question with all the love he held in his heart present in one desperate kiss.

She pulled away after a breathlessly drowning moment, and he stared at her with wide, tear-filled eyes as she brought a thumb to her lips, seemingly unconsciously brushing the tingles away with soft caresses.

“I suppose that answers my question, honey….”

He melted into his knees on the floor as she brought her other hand to cup his cheek.

“I love you, Ath….”

“Love you, Erebus, honey…. Now, go tell Hephaestus about your babies and ask him about the crib, and then come back to me. I’ll come up with some kinda special something for us, tonight, okay? _Celebrate_ ….”

She snarled a little, growling through the word, and he sprang to his feet with a feral smile lifting his lips.

_Laaa-kaaahhh!_

_Babies!_

He blinked, the Void embracing him in gentle pulses of power and need and comfort, and he opened his eyes once more in the bright sunlight of this western-facing mountainside beneath the main Olympian cityscape.

His knuckles rapped on the steel of Hephaestus’ front door – not the corrugated garage door, but the normal rectangle of glinting metal to the right side – and he called out with a little power rolled into the request to keep from startling his lover too badly.

“Phae, it’s Erebus. Had something I wanted to talk to you about, couldn’t wait…!”

A rattling crash from behind the steel and stone barriers had him flickering through the Void’s edge, back, away from the door in sheer startled panic.

But before he could blink and dash through the walls, privacy and friendly space-giving be damned, because his Phae might be hurt, a breathless thundering voice echoed through the cavernous space hidden behind the walls, and Erebus breathed a little easier.

“Hang on, Erebus; just let me put this away!”

“Okay….” It was only a whisper, but it was all he had at the moment.

He hadn’t realized how fond, truly fond, he was of Phae until the sudden moment he thought Phae might be hurt or….

_Don’t think it._

_He’s not._

_And you have so much happiness to keep these fears at bay now!_

_And babies!_

_Right. Focus._

_Act natural._

_Keep calm._

_And whatever you do, don’t flirt._

Thumping footsteps, and then a sweat-shining night-dark face was peeking around the doorframe, glacier eyes blinking rather owlishly in the brightness.

“What’s up, Erebus?”

“Hey. Could I come in?”

“Nope.”

Erebus cocked his head, confused.

“You’ve never not let me in before, Phae…. And…. This isn’t something I wanna discuss out here, where anyone could hear. It’s….”

“…. Then you gotta wait another minute. Lemme put this shit away. It’s a damned surprise.”

“Oh! Okay!”

“Alright, hang on then. AND NO PEEKING!”

The door slammed, and Erebus was left cackling on Hephaestus’ front drive.

_He’s nearly as bad as me when he’s working on something!_

_…._

_I like it…._

Erebus finally stopped laughing, straightening with a groaning sigh and gazing out over the descending hillside. The lush greenery of an Olympian late-winter was misleading, at least until one remembered the all-pervasive aura and power pooling around this central mountain-topping community.

In truth, Olympus itself was only around 10 miles across, and the farther toward the border you went, the less influence the energy so many immortal beings exuded had on the landscape. Out there on the fringes, the climate and vegetation more closely resembled the mortal realm’s patterns. But here, staring out over the almost-center of a heavily-powered civilization of immortal beings….

Here, the green trees and gently waving grasses and blooming flowers of all colors sang to his soul, and he realized he wanted to bring a little of this beauty to their home in the mortal realm this spring.

Gardens. Flower patches and vegetables and fruits.

They had the space in their valley.

And the little ones, the babies….

_They could get their hands and feet in the dirt like they’re meant to…._

_They won’t forget, not like these godlings seem to have…._

_I’ll make sure they remember…._

The door behind him opened, and he turned back to Hephaestus, a soft smile of simple serenity lifting his lips. He moved toward the Smith with his heart in his throat, trying to find the words to share an unremembered dream-made-real with one who had affected him so much, who had helped mold him into the being he now was.

_And how I want my babies to know you, too, Phae…._

_We’ll figure everything out, we will…._

_I won’t let you remain apart, not really. You deserve this happiness, too…._

_After all, I wouldn’t have them if not for you…._

_Your rings made this possible…._

Erebus passed Hephaestus in the doorway, blinking as his sight fizzled a little under the fluorescent bulbs glaring overhead. The door closed with a nearly-inaudible click, felt more than heard, and he turned around, leaning with affected casual grace on one hip against a high-topped worktable.

The way Hephaestus’ eyes raked him up and down had him thinking maybe this new outfit had more appeal than he’d bargained for….

“Phae…?”

Glacier eyes snapped up to his own maroon-and-smoke gaze, and he blushed as the iron-black Smith licked his lips, more than a little suggestively.

“Gorgeous, when did you decide to wear that instead of robes…?”

“Only about ten minutes ago, actually….”

Hephaestus crossed the short distance between them with a rocking grace, the Void-powered brace Erebus had given him those months before transforming his habitual limp into something more like a dancer’s swaying prowl. One callused hand molded around Erebus’ waist, just above the gathered folds of his almost-T-shirt’s hemline, and Erebus gasped as Phae pulled him close, hips and thighs touching in sparking lines of desire.

“Gorgeous, you look absolutely stunning in that; I can’t even think straight….” Phae’s voice rumbled and burred, volcanic sounds of need and heat, and Erebus melted into that massive, bulky chest, fingertips tracing the obsidian-shining bulges of muscle that peeked between the opened-down neckline of a sky-blue denim workshirt. Plum-dark lips moved to the left side of his neck, soft moans and hums punctuating every nipping kiss the Smith placed upon his skin.

“ _Phae…. Waaaiiit…._ ”

Erebus flattened his palms against the Smith’s heaving chest, shoving away, bending backward as Phae still held his hips captive by the massive hand against his lower back.

“Did I do something wrong, Erebus?” Doubt colored the Smith’s voice, though the boulders-and-forge-fires tones were still heavy in the quiet question. “I mean, I know you usually start things off, but….”

“It’s just…. I’m not here for that, for….”

“Oh…. Oh, wow, I didn’t-” Hephaestus stepped away, shoving his offending hand into the pocket at his hip as he turned on an oblique angle, deference and apology clear in every movement. “I…. I didn’t even think. That was rather…. I’m so sorry, Erebus, I jumped to conclusions, I think my dick was thinking for me…. Forgive me?”

Erebus gulped, simultaneously grateful beyond belief that Phae had listened, had stopped before this went too far, and also hungry to see where things might have gone…. But more than anything, he only wanted his Queen right now, and….

“I could wear this for you again on Thursday, when I come to see you, you know, for that….”

Phae’s smile lit the room like a captured star, and Erebus couldn’t help but beam back. “For me…? That’d be swell, gorgeous. It really does look incredible on you….”

“Thanks….” He sighed, melting inside as his fondness increased yet again for this one who’d introduced him to the pleasures and desires he’d so long ignored, for this one who let him be who he was, without reservation, even to the point of sharing his own love when needed….

_What a tangled web we weave, but somehow…. Somehow, it all works out…._

“Um, Erebus, where’d you go there? You had something you wanted to tell me…?”

“OH! Um. Okay. This, um, well, this may be a bit of a shock, but…. Geez…. Um. Okay…. Don’t freak out….”

Hephaestus waited patiently, hands in pockets, shoulders relaxed, head tilted just a little to one side so his hair bunched in sweat-damp ringlets on his shoulder. One eyebrow drifted upward as Erebus struggled for the words.

“Okay…. Ath and I…. I…. _We’re gonna have babies, Phae, and I want you to make the crib!_ ”

Hephaestus blinked, once, and then smiled softly.

_Too softly…._

“That’s excellent, Erebus! I’m so happy for you!”

_Flat…._

“Phae….”

“And I can’t tell you how much it means that you want me to make a crib for you….”

“Phae…. Why aren’t you surprised…?” The lack of emotion in Phae’s response, it made no sense, no sense at all. Unless…. “You…. Phae, you already knew…?”

The Smith gulped, and Erebus felt his happiness break as his heart threatened to drown in pain again.

“…. Yes. I knew. I didn’t want to keep it from you….”

“ _Did my Ath tell you…?!_ ”

**_Oh, please don’t let her have hurt me this way…._ **

“NO! No, gorgeous, no! I didn’t know she knew yet at all!”

“Then…?”

“When I went to convince Hera, you know, to marry you and Ath; Eily answered the door. She thought I knew what she knew, so we ended up teaming up. I’ve known since then. But she swore me to silence. Like, aura-bound, even…. I couldn’t tell you, much as I wanted to. And she said she left a note with your wedding gifts, I didn’t think it’d take you two so long to find it! I tried, Erebus, so many times, to find a way to tell you….”

“Stop….”

The Smith’s voice went silent, and a cold rage began spilling from Erebus’ bone-white frame, frost coating every tabletop and tool and inch of the floor in a reaching spiral as the first few words of Hephaestus’ explanation bounded back and forth in the King of Void’s mind like jackals tearing apart a rabbit.

**_“Since. The. Equinox….”_ **

The Smith could only nod, swallowing with an audible gulp.

Erebus turned and paced away from his lover, prowling the edges of this cluttered room as he strove to master his spiraling anger and pain and almost-hate.

_He knew. For months, he knew…._

_She swore him silent._

_She swore Ath silent._

_No one can say **why**._

He passed the kitchen-space, hot-plate sitting cold, a half-eaten bagel coated with cream cheese resting on a plate near a glass of grape-scented liquid. The food froze instantly as he came abreast of that countertop.

_They knew, and didn’t tell me._

_Say they couldn’t._

_Wouldn’t._

He passed the bed, large and dark like his own, the mingled scents of forge-fires and sandalwood and autumn apples and birchbark flooding his nose and mouth as he fought for calm. Frost dusted the sheets in random patterns, the metal of the frame groaning as it chilled.

_They knew, and didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t tell me._

_But I know now._

_I know now._

_They’re not keeping it from me…._

_They just had to wait for me to know…._

He passed the last worktable, entering the open space in front of the corrugated-steel door, under the long-tube fluorescent lights. He looked at Hephaestus from the corner of his eye as he braced one trembling, frost-smoking hand on the edge of the closest table.

_I know about my babies now, and that’s all that matters._

He bent his fingers into a fist on the tabletop, binding the heat-drain his pain had spawned back to manageability.

_I won’t let hate for something they can’t explain shadow this happiness…._

“It doesn’t matter, Phae. I forgive you….”

“Erebus, I wanted to-”

“I know. But I’m tired of hurting….” His heart shuddered a little as the Void reached for him. _No, no more running_. “I want this happiness; it doesn’t matter how it came about. I only want it. It’s enough that I have it. So, please. No more sorry. Just happiness. I’m gonna have babies!”

He dove through the Void, wrapping his arms around Phae’s torso and hugging the Smith tightly, pushing aside the pain and all else with a thought as he forced his focus on the bright days to come.

* * *

Hephaestus didn’t immediately return the embrace, but once he was sure his arms weren’t going to be frozen off by a blast of power from his lover, he slowly folded Erebus into his arms. Erebus’ head turned on his shoulder, a cool exhale brushing against the damp skin of his neck and the near-soaked collar of his denim shirt.

That soft not-touch was followed up by a moaning inhale from the King of Shadows, and Hephaestus chuckled as he felt the ancient being’s fertility power beginning to swell beyond his control.

“ _Mmmmm, Phae, you smell good…._ ”

“Thought you weren’t here for that, Erebus….”

“But you smell good….”

“I’m a damn sweaty mess….” He stepped back a fraction, breaking the embrace gently, and smirking at Erebus’ half-undone expression. “Though, if you like it that much, I’ll be sure to work Thursday morning before you get here, too….”

“Just…. Don’t know _why_ you smell so good…. Just like it….”

“Mmmmmhmmmm, no accounting for taste sometimes, Erebus…. Or, well, scent in this case. So…. You want me to make a crib?”

“Yes, please. Five weeks, the equinox. Um, again. The equinox, again.”

“Makes sense to me. Should be doable.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. ‘Specially considering I already started on one….”

The dumbfounded expression that took over the bone-white features set him to laughing, bending double as he struggled for air. When he finally straightened, wiping his eyes, he staggered backward in shock: Erebus was right in front of his face, blood-dark eyes wide-open and tear-misted.

“ _Show me…?_ ”

“Sure, gorgeous. Over here….”

He led the way through the maze of work-tables to a tarp-covered shape; standing at one of the narrower ends of the thing, he took up a fistful of the canvas.

He waited for the nod, and then he pulled the cover off with a flourish, knowing his lover would find no fault with the thing, unfinished though it was.

The Smith had never been more pleased with a project, and he was beyond ready to show it off to the one who’d waited eons for it without knowing he waited….

* * *

Erebus stared at the half-formed crib his lover had been working on in secret for who knew how long, and he wondered if he’d ever have the words to express the depth of emotion filling him….

He approached slowly, as wary as if the molded rods and bars and planes of black-iron were a wild creature cowering in brushwood; his fingers trembled as he went to his knees, caressing down one of the twist-twined corner posts as his eyes swept along the near side in wonder. He brought his fingers back up, feeling every hand-molded adjustment, every gentle curve and angle making the piece of metal into something between function and art and whimsy and strength….

His fingers continued through the air from the top of the post, the shape of what Hephaestus was planning taking form behind his eyes as if this project were his own heart-dream instead of the Smith’s.

The soft gasp told him as much, and he tried to swallow past the tears to answer the question he knew would be coming next.

“Erebus, you…. It’s like you’re tracing the exact line I’m gonna be making there on the headboard…. How are you doing that? Thought you wouldn’t peek in my head like that!”

“I’m not, Phae….” His heart stuttered as he tried to find the words for things he’d never tried to explain before. “I…. I don’t dream. I never could, unless I was sharing another’s. I love dreaming with my little darkling Khi…. But if I had ever dreamed, this… what you’re making…. This would have been my dream….” The tears choked him again, and he gulped down a few breaths before he could finish explaining. “And, I mean…. The angles are all there…. It just…. It’s not that hard to trace where they’re going….”

“It should be…!” Erebus tore his eyes from the heart-song the crib sang for the little starlings to come, tilting his head in question at his lover. “That damn angle there is eighty-nine degrees. You shouldn’t be able to tell the difference enough to see that I’m putting a damned arch of a headboard on the thing! It should fuckin’ look like a straight vertical!”

Erebus grinned with triumph, his Self writhing with pleasure as he claimed his victory. “If you felt every iota of whatever your skin was touching, you’d be able to tell the angle, too….” He turned his attention back to the marvel of a gift for starlings, the image of what his lover would finish crafting absorbing his attention fully as the Smith sputtered a little incoherently by the other end of the thing. A softly-singing chorus of starstuff sparkled along his ring, and he purred gently as his soul settled into the heartbeat of the cosmos….

_Soon, my babies…._

_Soon, and in the light…._

_I can’t wait to meet you…._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. There's no Titanspeech here you haven't encountered before. So, just.... Enjoy that lack of note.
> 
> Moving on....
> 
> BABIES! STARLINGS!  
> PHAE STILL COMING IN CLUTCH!
> 
> Arright, let's talk Erebus' temper. 
> 
> Our dude JUST found out, like, two hours ago, that he was gonna have babies. Legit babies. Of his own Self. On the heels of that, he found out his Queen, the one he loves more than any other being ever to have existed, KNEW about this and WAITED TO TELL HIM.... 
> 
> AND THEN HE FINDS OUT HIS LOVER, HIS FIRST OTHER LOVER, THE MALE WHO HELPED HIM BECOME WHO HE IS, WHO GAVE HIM AND HIS QUEEN THE RINGS THAT MADE THIS WHOLE BABY SITCH POSSIBLE:
> 
> ALSO. KNEW. ABOUT. THE. BABIES....
> 
> MONTHS. AGO....
> 
> Dude was pissed. Rightly so. 
> 
> But, like always, Erebus is a lover. He loves. Too much. Not enough. 
> 
> I realize it may have come off a little strange, or out of character, but.... Dude's allowed a little anger-tantrum every once in a while. And he's a little overwhelmed with all the NEW today. So, let's just be glad he has grown enough, matured enough, if you will, to deal with it in a healthy, albeit sudden and shocking way.
> 
> So, CRIB!
> 
> The thing about the angle on the corner post - this is another mild autistic note. Because we autistic peeps in general have highly sensitive skin, a lot of us can actually be pretty adept at sensing when things are just that smidge off-kilter or off-center. Even if it should be virtually undetectable. 
> 
> I cannot tell you how many times I had to get a level out to prove to my dad that I was right on picture frames and shit like that. That I was RIGHT without the damn level. Shake my head, I swear....
> 
> Anyhoo....
> 
> Ahem. I.... Yep. I want Ath to call Erebus honey now. All the damn time. 
> 
> And she may have some ideas for pet names for him to call her. Just.... We'll see what my kinky bitch silver Queen has up her skin-tight not-fabric sleeves....
> 
> Next, we have....  
> Let's see....
> 
> I probably will write Ath and Erebus celebrating. It seems time for some delishous kinkiness in the bed of Primordial Titans. I'm thinking toys. I'm thinking bondage. I'm thinking the kink muses are gonna have a field day in my headspace. 
> 
> BUT AFTER THAT!
> 
> Valentine's day! Remember we're a week out from that right now, and honestly....
> 
> It's not gonna be what you think. Erebus has plans, but not for Ath. Or Phae. Or Tamoi. 
> 
> He's got plans for the Heart of Void. And it's gonna be fun. 
> 
> Especially if Teno has his way....  
> *eyebrows eyebrows*
> 
> STAY TUNED, MY LOVELIES!
> 
> As always, comments, kudos, etc are yogurt, and your love is the honey that makes it palatable to my Swoonie-Self....


	6. National Froyo Day - Celebrate with Fanarts!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry not sorry, we found out it was Froyo Day, so we just had to share!

I wanted to apologize for it being so long since we had any update to this latest segment of Primordial Lore. I got seriously caught up in Night's Darkness - damn inspo muses makin' me their bitch yet again! - But I wanted to say I've changed trax again, and the next couple chapters of this fic - Celebrate! and Valentine's Day - are both coming together on schedule, so.... Stay tuned! In the meantime, in case you've somehow missed them in the Discord or otherwise, I hereby present one Primordial-Lore-fan-created piece, and then two concept arts of my own from my earliest attempts at digital art over the last couple months.

First, In Honor of Yogurt its Delectable Self, we have RoselessThorn's Erebus and Yogurt....

Next, we have my own digital art of Erebus....

And finally, my own digital art of Khimeria as a child (approximately 9-10 in developmental aging, but her actual chronological age will be somewhere closer to 4 or 5 at that time)....

Once again, thank you all for being such excellent frendos, and the next few chapters will be more than worth the waiting! 

Praise yogurt, frozen or otherwise, and have a grand ol' night!


	7. Celebrate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright - NOTES AND WARNINGS!
> 
> Within, we have:
> 
> Strange-form Intimacy, including slightly-possessive thematics.  
> Loss of control - you'll know it when you see it.  
> Definite BDSM play - including ropes, wax, and forced-sensation-endurance.   
> Themes of grief, some body dysmorphia, and trust in strange spaces.
> 
> And finally, some hope, and newly-blossoming love. Uh-huh.... Yep....
> 
> Just wait....

The contents of the box were spread onto the stardusted sheets of Void-black, and the Queen of Truths and Memories tapped her finger on her pursed lips, lost in thought.

_Could do that._

_And that._

_But if we did those two, then he wouldn’t really be up for that or that or this…._

_But this and…._

_You know what?_

_Screw this._

She tossed a few things back into the box, a slight push of power shoving the box across the floor a few feet as she grew frustrated.

_Okay._

_This._

_Then that._

_And this, with those two…._

_And if he’s up for it, that…._

_There! Perfect._

_A delectable plan…._

The rejected items coasted on shimmering cushions of almost mist, flitting into the box before the lid slotted into place over the top, hiding the discards from view. A pocket of her silver-shining Void opened at a thought, and she placed the chosen four items within, leaving the bed clear once more.

“There. Now, I’ll go make some fresh tea, and see what we have in the way of food already made, and then….”

A flicker of power, dark and writhing and sensual in its solemn-feeling shadows, let her know her King had come home. He was outside still, under the cypress tree on the hill in their home-space Valley, and she reached for his mind in mild curiosity.

**_I’m okay. Just wanted to breathe in the light for a moment. It’s such a beautiful afternoon…._ **

_It is…. Let me get some tea steeping, and I’ll join you._

**_Delightful, my beautiful Queen._ **

She felt him settle to the sparse-flung grass beneath the gnarly-armed tree before her mind registered her body as her own once again. She left their bedroom, nearly floating down the stairs as her excitement began to sizzle along her nerves, beaming out of her on invisible rays of steadily-building lust.

_Delightful, but not nearly as much as what I’m planning for us this evening, my King…._

_We’re gonna celebrate, and celebrate hard._

* * *

Their Valley looked much the same as it had last summer, the first time he brought his Ath back here to the place where their story began in blood and pain, the time he asked her to share love and pleasure with him in place of those ancient sorrows. He leaned against the cypress at his back, peace and contentment and softly-glowing anticipation lighting the shadows around his heart with sparkling stardust and the songs of starlings-to-come.

He had felt his Queen’s anticipation, bright-flaring and hot-eager, when she touched his Self in curiosity; she needed to claim him, needed his submission tonight, after all he’d allowed to be taken from him earlier by Tamoi, after his urgent need to speak to Phae….

And he needed her dominance, needed her to take….

He relished the symmetry, the balance, the harmony he had found.

He gazed out over their Valley, their home, and soft colors played like rippling brooks and puddles dashed by raindrops to shimmering surreality behind his eyes: a flower-bed against the front of their home, bordering the door in happy colors against the silver-swirled darkness of the high-reaching walls; scattered patches of garden-plots, mimicking nature’s own wildflowers, hinting at the pathways he and his Queen and Tamoi had already begun marking out over the months since the autumn equinox; and perhaps some climbing vines on the fringes of Tamoi’s birch-grove, beyond the hill there….

She stepped through the Void, sliding down beside him as fluid as a waterfall, nestling against his left side and kissing his cheek heartily as he turned toward her in love.

 _My Erebus, you’re so handsome here under this tree right now! Them pants, mmmmm! And this thing here, oh gods, I love this…._ Her fingers danced around the bun he’d wound at the back of his head, and he ducked his head a little, chuckling softly as he fought a wave of shyness.

**_I kinda like it, I think. It works with the shirt better, doesn’t it?_ **

_It really does…._ She nibbled along the bare skin of his neck, her hand creeping around to brush her fingertips over her mark on the far side, and he gasped, arching a little away from the tree-trunk behind him, arching toward her, feeling her pressing back against him, steady-strong and unyielding as silver, as steel. She grounded him even as she sent his mind soaring like his body itself could never do, and willingly he followed where she led.

He felt the ripple of power as Tamoi activated the stationary portal they’d bound on the fringe of his grove, felt it allow him passage to Hephaestus’ front drive, and then the shivery pulse as it closed behind the pond-guardian.

And then he was scrambling to his feet to race through his Void after his Queen as she pelted away from him, flinging her Self through blinding rays that he could never fully understand, and together, they tumbled onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and heavy breathing as she rolled atop him, grinding her hips over his to force him to stillness. He obeyed, panting, while her triumph flared from her silver-gleaming eyes and carried him that much closer to ecstasy and fulfillment.

Her voice was quiet in their darkening bedroom, starlight and silver-shine rather than steel-and-sterling, but he listened as rapt as if it had been the cracking of a whip. “My Shadow, there’s a lot I wanted to do with you tonight. You know you can tell me if it’s too much; I think we’ll have some fun, though….”

He nodded, craning his head up, his mouth drifting open as he strained for one more kiss. She giggled, bending down with her hands over his chest, her fingertips kneading his skin through the almost-fabric of his shirt. Her tongue danced around his own, forcing him to chase the contact between their mouths, but he could only smile and lick his lips as she pulled up and away from him again. He would submit, always submit, and she knew it….

“First, I wanted to tie you up.” He gave a writhing shiver under her body as she pinned him with a brilliant smirk; his eyes darted to the bar above the foot of their bed, behind her head, but she moved her face back and forth, telling him he was wrong. “Nope. I wanted to tie you up here, on the bed, right where you’re lying….”

He gasped, pleasure arcing up his spine as his feet and hands tingled with the realization. He nodded, violently, the bun behind his head scraping against the mattress.

“After I tie you up, I wanted to put something on you, something really fun, and then I thought we’d play with the candles. How does that sound?”

He was a little confused about _put something on you_ , but the thought of the candles overshadowed that unknown with utter delight. “ _Perfect…._ ”

She smiled, softer this time. “Excellent. After the candles, I’m gonna readjust how you’re tied up, and then I’m gonna fuck you, honey…. Whatcha think of that…?”

He could only whimper as the anticipation lit a fire along his spine, writhing slightly beneath her as his sensation-hunger swelled out of all proportion to his submissive immobility. She smiled, and he knew she was enjoying his reactions, so he let his eyes roll back in his head and succumbed to the images her words had conjured for his hyper-aroused mind.

She chuckled and raised her body off of his; one of her hands trailed down over his sternum, abdomen, and up over the jut of his pelvic bones. He felt his shirt melting away under her touch, and he writhed just that bit more as the cool air of their bedroom and the softness of the Void-sheet beneath him blared like trumpets into his mind. His pants remained intact, but he parted his legs for her as her hand hesitated atop his pelvis; she continued her gentle caress over his groin once his legs moved enough to permit her access, and he felt the open space she had demanded earlier in the afternoon take shape. His hips jerked up at the strangeness of the sensation, but pleasure had him smiling around his panting and gasping breaths.

She knelt on his right side then, her knees causing the mattress to dip beneath his ass. He instinctively tensed and rolled a little onto his left, and one of her hands caught him around his right shin, bending his lower legs toward her even as his settled onto his left hip and shoulder, his right hand clawed against the sheets in anticipation.

He could feel the tingle of her power in every inch of the rope she bound around his shins and calves, binding his lower legs together so they were as one limb; he wondered dimly when she’d made the rope, because only her own Void-constructs felt like that, even through his Void-fabric.

He decided he didn’t care when or how she’d done it as she began winding another length of tingling rope around the middle of both of his thighs. He whimpered again, feeling his knees bend as she pulled on the connecting-rope, forcing him into the shape she wanted. Her fingers trailed along his thighs up to the underside of his ass-cheeks, then back down, thumping over the strands of the rope until she reached his bent-double knees. She tickled him there a little bit, stealing a trembling shudder from his taut frame, and then her fingers danced their way down to where the ropes bound his calves.

All too soon, she rose from behind him, and he felt her leave the bed. He could have turned around, twisted at his hips to follow her movement, but he knew she wanted him where he was, as he was, bound and immobile for her pleasure.

He refused the call of defiance and worked to steady his breathing as he felt her moving around the foot of the bed. He stared straight at the wardrobe cabinet beside their bathroom door, not moving his head, waiting for her to move into his line of vision. Which she did, finally, and he gasped as, with a flaring flash of her power, a vibrator appeared in her upraised left hand.

“Told you I was gonna put something on you….”

She floated onto the bed, her eyes locked on his pelvis. He couldn’t have stopped himself as he realized what she was going to do: he thrust his hips forward, trying to close to distance as she settled to the mattress in front of his abdomen. She chuckled darkly as her free hand pushed against the front of his right hip, stopping his involuntary reaction with clawing fingertips and grinding palm.

“Now, now, my Shadow, you know better than that. Hold still.”

He trembled, but he obeyed. Always, he would obey.

This particular vibrator was still relatively new to their collection. 6 inches long, it was a single, elegantly curved shaft, creamy white with violet accents, smooth and tapered on each end. Ath had used it a few weeks ago during one of their playtimes, pressing the end of the thing directly on the divot at the front of his groin – as if it were an extension of her fingers – and he’d nearly lost his mind. This time, though, it seemed she had other plans.

Her hands gently pried apart the bunched muscles at the tops of his thighs, and the vibrator settled into place along the valley of his groin, flush to the bared skin of his core. He wondered when she’d slicked the thing with a light coating of lube, but he knew by the lack of harsh friction that she’d done so.

As she let go of the slender plastic shaft, her fingers twisted around the control on the base, and he moaned heartily as the lowest level of sensation began to thrum from his groin, through his stomach, down his thighs, up his spine: his entire body aware of the source of the pleasure, and he smiled with his eyes half-lidded at his Queen as she pulled her hands from his center.

“Oh, yeah, my Erebus…. I knew you’d like that….”

He hummed, his hips jerking gently back and forth against all his conscious intentions of remaining perfectly motionless. One silver hand molded softly over the curve of his right hip, light pressure forcing his thighs just that little bit more together, and the quiet throbbing in his groin spiked suddenly. He gasped, freezing, as a handful of his small orgasmic shockwaves blasted through him, leaving him breathless when she finally released her hold on his hip.

“Alright, don’t you squirm, now. Let me go get our candle, and we’ll see just how much celebrating you can take, okay?”

“ _Yesss, pleassse!_ ” She laughed as she bounced and jostled her way off the bed. Every motion of her body moved his own just enough to spike the sensations emanating from his groin, and he happily panted through the waves of pleasure, knowing she’d left the bed the hard way just for him.

His eyes slid closed, and he drifted beyond conscious thought for a few moments until a quiet grunt from his Queen brought him gently back to this reality.

“Mmmm-mmm- _mmmm_ , my Shadow. You look good all tied up like that….” She dragged her eyes away from his body with an obvious effort, focusing on his hazy gaze with a possessive smile on her lips. “How are you feeling? Everything good, nothing too much?”

“ _Sss’allll fine, love….”_

“Snakey already, huh?”

“ _Can’t helllp it…. Fffeelsss good…._ ”

“So I see.” She lifted the candle into his line of sight then, and he smiled and melted into the mattress as she floated back up onto the bed. It was already lit, the black wax beginning to sweat along the outer surfaces, the channel in the rim of the thing from previous usage allowing soft tongues of flame to lick up and shine out over her hand and his skin as she approached. “Ready for more…?”

He purred for her, rolled his shoulders a little, raised his eyebrows to show her how eager he was to please her, and she laughed brightly in reply. The ring around his neck, her marks on his skin, her rope binding his legs: everything sang against his body at the sound, and he could only watch in suspended thought as she tilted the candle over his ribcage, three feet above his skin.

The trickle of wax broke apart into dozens of spattered droplets at his hit the bone-white skin over his ribs, and he twisted slightly, turning his chest more into the mattress to expose more of the skin of his back to her control. He thought she might refuse to allow the unintentional defiance, but just when he was breathing in to apologize to his Queen for moving without permission, another trail of wax marked his shoulder-blade, and he whimpered and babbled nonsensically for a few moments as his love for her exploded like the sensations firing along every one of his nerves.

Though he’d been marked with the candles only a few short hours ago, under the hand of his King: he knew he loved Ath more for the way she knew exactly how to manipulate his body to achieve the greatest amount of sensation, the most precise placement of shocks and pleasure-pains. Her free hand began kneading over his waist, between the wax-splatter and trails and his twisted hips; the vibrator against his groin continued its steady-thrumming job between his legs, and somehow, the unchanging continuity of that individual component of his pleasure allowed him to focus, even as micro-orgasms thrashed his flesh to ribbons inside his skin. He could not find his way to a larger release, but neither could he imagine anything greater than what he was feeling at the present moment.

And his Queen, his Truth, his heart-song and stardust had done this to him, for him….

His teeth bit down into the sheets beneath him as tears left the corners of his eyes. Another trickle of wax over his back, and he keened as her hand loosened over his waist, fingers patting gently as she realized how overwhelmed he was becoming.

“My Erebus, how are you doing, honey…?” He whimpered for the pleasure of that pet-name once more against his heart, and he could hear the smile in her voice as she stroked along his waist and hip, asking him to surface enough to answer her inquiry. “Remember our colors, hmmmm?”

He panted, considering as he pulled his teeth from the sheets, spitting out flecks of Void-dust. She chuckled with his sheepish huffing giggles, and he pushed up on his elbows a little to peek back over his shoulder at her, her marks upon the right side of his neck twinging with the twisting motion. “Yellow, I think…. Maybe we…. Maybe jussst fuck me, pleassse?”

She laughed, bright as the sun, and he smiled and melted into the mattress once again as she brought the candle to her mouth and puffed out the flame. “Sure, honey. Hang on, lemme set this down, and then I’ll get the vibrator and fix how you’re tied up.” She floated off the bed, and he was grateful; his hips were twitching uncontrollably as his groin was the only part of him receiving sensation now, and he thought he’d never loved her more than when she knew exactly what he needed, how he needed her to take care of him.

The candle thumped onto the shelf against the wall beside their wardrobe, and she returned to him through the air, hovering as she gently pried his legs apart, as far as she could with him still tied at thighs and calves. Her nimble fingers were careful not to poke or scrape against his oversensitive skin as she twisted the control knob, turning the thing off, and he shivered in the sudden absence of sensation as she withdrew the plastic shaft from between his legs.

The vibrator thumped to the bed as she flew over his hips, landing behind his back once more and plucking at the knots she’d bound him within. He sighed in relief as the tension in his thighs and knees was released, as her hands helped to move his legs until they were straight, pointing toward the end of the bed, still bound around his calves. A flash of power, and a length of silver rope dropped to the mattress in front of his stomach.

“Roll over for me, Erebus.” Her hands pushed insistently, steadily, against his lower back and ass, and he rolled under her command, coming to rest on his front with his arms folded beneath his chest. He turned his head to the left, watching as she laid hold of that length of rope she’d tossed in front of him before; she brought it back to his thighs, wrapping him up once more. “I’m gonna leave it a little looser, make it easier to get my cock between your legs, okay, but you know you can’t break the ropes, ‘cause they’re mine, and that’s the fun part, isn’t it, honey?”

“ _Mmmmmhmmmmm!_ ” She smiled at him, peeking from the corner of her left eye, and he sighed with the love pounding through him with every beat of his heart.

She crawled up beside his chest a few moments later, another length of silver rope materializing in her right hand as she settled to her haunches. He stared at it, rapt, hungry for another touch of her power on his skin, as she lowered her voice to a commanding almost-rumble of Queenly demand.

“Hands where I can reach them, my King.” He raised his chest enough to free his arms, pushing them slowly across the mattress toward the headboard. She walked on her knees to his hands, holding his wrists together and wrapping the rope around them both, over and between and over and through and over, finishing it off with a practical knot and a quickly-pecked kiss to the back of each of his hands.

“There we go….” She left the bed once more, another pulse of bright-ray power telling him she’d called in her harness and strap-on. He waited, laid out in a stretched-tight line on their bed, for her to return to him, for her to claim him this way.

As soon as he felt her climb back onto the mattress near his feet, he rolled his shoulders, his head turning to the right and settling his left cheek against the sheets. He could bend his elbows, raise his body up a little, but she’d left him with his arms stretched straight out before him, so he refused that tempting idea.

A squelching sound broke the eager silence, and strawberry-scented pleasure blasted through their bedroom. He moaned happily as her hands pried apart his still-clothed ass-cheeks, as one slick-wet hand started coating the bare skin beneath and between his ass and thighs with delight. And then her hands were swiping clean on the sheets, her bare chest was against his back, smearing the still-soft wax between them, and her strapped-on cock was gliding into place at his core….

And he was home….

* * *

She knew the instant his brain’s higher functions all shut down by the breathless groan that rumbled out beneath her from his chest as she settled onto him. Her legs molded carefully along the outside edges of his own, and the feel of her power-crafted ropes binding him stoked something deep inside her Self, something possessive and feral and hungry for more….

Ath knew, in that instant, that no matter how he let Tamoi use him, no matter how much he loved Phae’s body:

She knew Erebus was hers, and she would always, for all eternities, remain his….

Bracing her elbows beside his shoulders, her knees near his, she pushed her hips up and away from his ass, the nubs at the base of her strap-on tugging and jolting over her own pelvic arch; she thrust downward, hard, the way she knew he liked, and the pleasure-filled gasp that left his mouth sang to her soul. She set up a steady pace, hard and powerful thrusts rhythmically applied to leave him soaring through nothing but the purely physical bliss of sensation at her command.

She kept her eyes on his face for as long as she could, even though she knew he was beyond realizing her attention; he was so far gone, he was drooling onto the sheets, and wasn’t that a delightful thought, that she’d undone him so completely?

She let her focus shift to the image his bound wrists presented so far away, up the long lines of his straining arms: white skin, bound in silver, shifting slightly on the stardusted black of their sheets….

She growled a little and fucked him harder as the pleasure of his submission overwhelmed her mind in needful taking.

She didn’t quite feel it when his breathing shifted from pleasured gasping to fearful panicked whimpers, but she couldn’t ignore the sudden pulses of power that beat against her Self from his own a few moments after she began to lose herself in the motions.

Her rhythm slowed, her eyes hazily trying to make sense of the flickering flashes of darkness taking over his skin, the translucence of his form and the writhing coils of darkness that were suddenly spilling out in tendrils and lengths of misty-smokiness under her body.

A cry of utter horror left his mouth as Erebus’ body shifted from long, powerful lines of bone-white musculature and sensuality to a single, continuous column of half-there darkness and smoke:

The shadow-snake he had always been in his mind was suddenly there in his place on their bed, and she thrashed up and away, collapsing to her ass near the foot of the mattress as his Self-made-flesh twisted in upon itself, coiling and writhing tight around and around until rose-red soft-fire eyes met her gaze from a trembling nest of smoky-mistyness….

She panted, the shock blanking her mind; it took far too long for her to find her voice, she knew she needed to talk to him, calm the fear and terror that billowed through their home from the trembling thing before her, but it took far too long, and she knew he would take her silence all the wrong ways….

“My Erebus, hey, you’re okay….”

Those eyes she loved disappeared as he squinted them closed; she knew he would be crying if he had the body to do so. His voice whispered into her mind, shame and fear and pain swallowing every ounce of joy he’d been feeling the entire day in shadow.

**_No, I’m not…. You never…. I can’t do thisss…._ **

“Yes, you can. You can find your way back, back to your other body…. What do you need from me…?”

**_I don’t know…._ **

The shame she thought she could deal with. The fear, she understood. It was the continuing pain, physical pain, she wasn’t certain of the source or reasoning.

“Erebus, did I hurt you? Did I not get off of you quickly enough?” She shuffled across the bed, reaching for him. Her fingers barely made contact with the drifting mist of the ruff along the back of his head when a blast of power sent her flying through the air away from him. She managed to gain control of her horizontal freefall before she could be harmed, but now, the fiery pain and sorrowful shame and terrible fear were mingled with heartbreaking regret and guilt.

**_I’m sssorry, pleassse, don’t touch, it hurtsss…._ **

“Okay, I won’t, I didn’t know…. Honey, please, what can I do…?”

His eyes opened again, and she thought she’d never seen anything so pitiful….

**_I don’t know…. Delarkesss…. They talked to me, the lassst time…._ **

Ath immediately filed that away for further discussion, before she took a steadying breath and started talking to her broken, unbound Shadow-king….

* * *

“Well, I mean, if it’s just my voice, I suppose talking about anything at all will do, huh? Hmmmm, I heard tell there’s a new movie coming out in the Underworld soon, something about a group of daemons and nymphs that go camping and they get lost, and there may or may not be an evil witch in the woods where they’re at…. I think Artemis liked the one that company did a few years ago, but I don’t know if she’s really wanting to go to this one….”

The air of their bedroom wasn’t really flowing, the windows below in the main room were all closed for the night, but her breath stirred currents in the space around them, and every word, soothing as her voice was, spiked another flash of sensation through him. He could hardly decide if this would work; he couldn’t think past the sheer volume of sensations clamoring, all equally insistent, for his attention.

Even his own almost-skin touching his own almost-skin in this tightly-wound ball of Self he’d wriggled into was like ice and fire and death and worse….

He struggled to focus on her voice, the vibrations of sound through the mattress beneath him, through the air around him, through her Self reaching softly for his own in comfort.

“I think I remember Arry saying he might want to go see that one, maybe we could make a day of it. And it’s Valentine’s Day next week, we still need to tell Teno and the girls and Caer that they’re all getting the night off. I think they’ll really like that, and I have a few new ideas for your playlist for the night, Erebus. I don’t really…. Um, oh, um, we should probably make a couple of lists, you know, before the equinox…. Gosh, um, what else, what else…?”

He focused everything he was in one titanic effort to return to the shield he’d worn for eons, and gasped as he reformed, huddled on the bed, naked, his arms around his knees and hunched over, curled tight around his stomach. His hair lifted and danced as his power billowed around him in unseen currents, and she fell completely silent as he panted harshly, the air grating like sand in his throat.

“Erebus…?”

**_Hold me!_ **

She scrambled across the bed, wrapping her arms around him, squeezing tightly as he sobbed and screamed and clawed for air. He felt her love in every tightly-bunched muscle keeping him from falling apart again, and he thought, maybe, perhaps, it would be enough….

“I’ve got you, my Shadow, you’re okay…. I’ve got you….”

It still burned, he still hurt, where her skin touched his, where his own touched his, but this, _this_ he could live with….

That’s why he’d formed the walls, after all….

All those years ago….

* * *

She settled back to the mattress beside him. He was still huddled against the headboard, but he’d regained enough control to wrap his body in his usual robe. The long scar from his poisoning and Arry’s deathwound marked his chest in the open space between the edges of the plunging neckline, and his bare feet smoked against the sheets as he poured the excess power out of his body. She let her dark grey suit coat her own skin as she moved back into place beside him, pulling him into a close embrace once more, waiting for him to talk.

He had promised he’d try to explain, but it had taken hours still for him to regain even enough composure for her to leave the bed and remove her strap-on and harness and put away their toys; the ropes had been completely unmade when he lost his skin, but she knew they'd discuss that some other time.

She held him, nuzzling softly against his shoulder, hating the cold stillness he seemed to be relying on at the moment. But somehow, she knew he needed these cold walls of mental stone.

She’d let him have them, until he could trust his Self enough to dismantle them once more….

He took in a shuddering breath and turned his head a little, warily eyeing her through the falling curtain of his sweat-dampened hair. She thought she’d never seen anything so beautiful as that savagely-fearful gaze. She waited; he knew what she needed to know….

He’d obey, when he could….

“I’m sorry, Ath. I never wanted you to see me like that….”

“Erebus, I’ve seen you like that, in your mind, in my mind…. It’s not like I didn’t know it was you…!”

He huffed, but there was no humor in his eyes: wary eyes, haunted eyes, a flickering shadow of something broken hiding deep within those rose-soft orbs. “You like this body. You shouldn’t have ever had to know it’s all a lie….”

“Lie? It’s not a lie…. This is you, the you you’ve chosen to be, right?” He nodded, wanting to trust, but she could tell it was hard for him. Somehow, through long years, he’d come to hate the Self he was in his core; she had to help him see…. “Erebus, you’re beautiful in any shape. I’d have kissed you in that shape if you’d have been able to take it!”

_And there it is, there’s my smile…._

“Then, you…. It wasn’t…. It wasn’t too weird for you?”

“Okay, remember, _weird_ is our drink of choice around here….”

He relaxed a little, so she eased her grip around him to match. “Okay, fair enough….”

“…. You said that Delarkes helped you before?”

“The last time I lost control…. Um…. It was when I came back from crafting my shield, binding….”

He gulped; she knew better than to fill the gap aloud for him…. _From binding your little ones to you, from altering their memory webs to gems of Self like nothing else in existence…._

“I came back like that; I didn’t have the presence of mind to remember I needed my body, this body, and then it all hurt too much and I couldn’t think….”

“Okay, so, I felt that you were hurting…. But, Erebus, you love sensations, I know you do. Can you explain to me why it’s so different when you’re, um, a snake…?”

He pulled a little away from her, his brows lowering to concentrate. “It’s…. You’ve felt me in my mind, you know I have no filters. No walls there. Everything open.” He met her eyes, and the Other he was, different as light and dark from her own Self, blared out in force then. “When I lose this body, that’s what I am here, out here in this reality. Everything comes in. I can’t stop it. Every inch of me, like an exposed, um, nerve.”

She nodded through his explanation; that did make sense, that was what she’d been feeling from him.

“Okay, so…. This body…. You weren’t _this_ , at the start. You were the shadow-snake…?”

Tears welled in his eyes suddenly, and he turned his head away from her, staring out over the railing at the edge of their bedroom, through the large window wall into their moon-washed valley.

“Yes….”

_Hollow-voice, okay, what are you hiding…?_

“Erebus, you said…. You told Arry, and me, once…. You said Kronos looked like you….”

The tears spilled from his eyes, shining on his cheeks as he stared into the moonlight. He nodded, once, slowly, as if the weight of worlds beyond counting rested on the single gesture. His mouth barely opened, and she felt his words in her mind more than heard them with her ears.

**_I took this shape so he’d know I loved him…. I loved him from the moment I saw him, and I knew he was mine…. I loved him, Ath, and…._ **

She closed the distance between them as his words failed him; she held him once again as his heart broke from the still-too-raw grief.

**_My boy…. He was mine, and I wanted him to know that…._ **

She held him, and they passed the dregs of the night healing in silence from old hurts.

When the dawn broke in the east, shining brightly through the window-wall into their upper-story bedroom, she held him still, but the pains were less than they had been hours before.

“Well, my Erebus, that was definitely some kinda celebration, huh…?”

He chuckled, turning to brush his fingers over her cheek, down over her throat, lingering on her ring’s dark line. “I don’t know; before I broke it, it was a grand old time….” He kissed her, and she knew, somehow, they’d be able to move on….

Together, they’d build new dreams from the ashes of heart-wounds eons old….

* * *

_Now, now, little ones, rest. Please._

_No, I know, but she’s got him…._

_Honestly. He’s not my job anymore!_

_Fine! Fine! I’ll check on him soon!_

_Good grief…._

_Even bound in little starlight gems, you Titans are annoying…._

Delarkes made their way from the gem-studded cavern, shaking their head in mock-irritation.

It wasn’t their fault. The stronger their almost-father got, the more they could feel from him.

And he’d been feeling a lot the night before….

They’d have to ask the Queen for a few more nets around the cavern, if only so Delarkes could get some sleep when things got a little raw in that dark-and-silver-swirled house in a Valley of death and life.

Delarkes stumbled to a stop in the doorway of their quarters, sputtering an incoherent nothing exclamation at the figure leaning on their table’s edge.

“Well, hi to you, too, Paps….”

“You know good and well you’re not supposed to just, whatever, waltz the hell up in here! What if the Guardians of the upper canopy spotted you!?!”

“They didn’t, and it was worth it…. I’ve got something for ya….”

“Don’t care. Get out.”

“Paps, come on, when’s the last time I bothered you for no reason?!”

“Right. Now.”

“That’s not fair, I’m not done yet, it’s not the _last_ time….”

“…. Will you just deliver it and get out!?! I need to sleep! Damned Titan brats kept me up half the night….”

“Okay, wow, geez. I seriously wouldn’t recommend looking at this until you’re a little more happy-feeling at least, okay, Paps?” Delarkes watched as the slender fingers pulled a rolled-up scroll from their shoulder-bag, placing it gently on the cluttered tabletop. “Honestly, it’s worth it, believe me. Ta!”

Their eldest little one walked out of the room through the balcony door without a backward glance, taking flight with a skipping hop off the railing. The dawn-glinting lake beyond the island’s cliff-side walls glimmered like diamonds, like Soul-gems, and Delarkes wondered….

They unrolled the scroll and collapsed into their chair….

_How…?_

The note fluttered out of the tight-curled top edge, and Delarkes dropped the ink-covered scroll with a rattling flutter to capture the smaller piece of modern stationary.

_“Delarkes,_

_It seemed to make sense to ask the Muse of Love Letters to bring this to you…._

_I wasn’t sure what else to do…._

_I can’t get you out of my mind, literally. Hence, the scroll._

_It was all I could do, besides dream…._

_I’d love to see you sometime, talk to you for the first time…._

_You know where to find me…._

_-Melarebus”_

Delarkes’ hand trembled as they placed the note on the tabletop; their whole arm shook as they bent to retrieve the scroll from the floor.

_How…?_

_It’s my…._

The black and silver lines were clear, their shapes utterly unknown and intimately familiar….

_How does he know my Self like this…?_

_I’ve never even been able to picture me…._

_How…?_

Delarkes stood up, the scroll held open before their face, and moved to their bed. Sitting shakily on the edge, they devoured the ink-painting, their mind blank, heart singing softly in multi-colored swirls of light.

_How did I not know…?_

_How could I have been so blind…?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, you get plot with your porn. 
> 
> So, I TOLD YOU ALL WE WAS DOING THINGS! If you've read Hearts of Void - the shorter installment between Shadows and Truths and Born of Time and Memory, at Erebus' club with Hades/Perse/Demeter - we're finally to the first time where Erebus sheds his skin! Yay, beginnings of shadow-snake smexiness!
> 
> Sorry. No I'm not. I'm not sorry. 
> 
> I promised Stranger than Strange-form Intimacy. Here ya go.... Just hold on tight, it gets better.
> 
> And then, yes.... Sadlies. Heartbreaklies. 
> 
> Obviously, Erebus has never changed his shape since he took the bone-white and red-eyed form that marked his first little one, Kronos. Even when Kronos broke Erebus' heart and began to steal from Gaia and nearly killed Oranus, when Kronos became the black of the night skies and never regained his cream-and-roses form - Erebus remained as he had chosen to be, because he loved his little boy so....
> 
> And then, because he chose that shape, Arry, when he was born and marked by the Void as Erebus' heir - Arry also inherited that form. But now, Arry is also different, silver-swirled and starlight marked. 
> 
> Erebus is not done worrying about his body; after all, what could happen when he and Ath's first little starling is born? 
> 
> What if that little one looks like Kronos, too...?
> 
> Things to think about....
> 
> Also, I thought it was time for some introduction of the Green-Yellow-Red "traffic light" method of BDSM communication. If you've never looked into this before, basically, Green means all good, nothing needs adjusting or changed. Yellow means we're hitting a boundary, or something needs adjusting, or it's in any way not going well. Red is a hard stop, full stop, do not pass go or collect 2 dollars or anything. Erebus was getting a little overstimulated, so, Yellow for let's just move on to the good stuff. Trying to set up for some more intense fun later on, loves.
> 
> AND THEN-!
> 
> Arry sent Delarkes the drawing he did! And the messenger was the "Muse of Love Letters," and the messenger kept calling Delarkes "Paps"?!?!?
> 
> Theories, little ones?
> 
> Anyhoo....
> 
> Welp. Now Delarkes knows Arry be crushing....
> 
> What's gonna happen on V-day?
> 
> And yep. Erebus and Ath are running Heart of Void for V-day....
> 
> That's gonna be a hoot and a half. 
> 
> Hold on tight, Imma try to get the next chapter done on time!
> 
> I never meant to be so late with this one, Night's Darkness been kicking my muses' asses.
> 
> Onward, little ones!
> 
> And as always, comments, kudos, etc - all are delicious yogurt for my Swoonie darkling Self....


	8. Valentine's Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is notably shorter than the others. However, I really think this is going to be an incredible experience for you guys! Cause, see.... 
> 
> We've got a playlist to guide you through our headspace this time!
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/77F16boN5HuXdAyeonBAcu?si=YESY_tcHQTqLgQE7kQNi9Q
> 
> Now, there's two ways you can do this:
> 
> Each "section" of this chapter is denoted with the song title. The songs are all in order in the playlist. You can read through each "section", and when you get to the next one, skip to the next song - some of these sections are actually timed to match the end of a verse or chorus if you read about 200 words per minute (Specifically, the All Mine section - it's golden, I'm proud of me). 
> 
> However, you could also simply listen to each song in its entirety before moving on to the next section's passage. 
> 
> The choice, as always, is yours, little ones. 
> 
> Some of the songs have further thematics throughout that layers to each scene, but it is not necessary to listen to the whole song if you only want to proceed through the story. 
> 
> Please feel free to let me know in comments how this experimental modality worked for you, or did not work for you! 
> 
> Additionally, many thanks goes to Daalex for giving me the need - the utterly necessary, desperately hungry need - to find a way to work Love in this Club into a chapter somewhere, somehow, without it being too raunchy. You're an inspiration, dear-heart.
> 
> Onward to the Valetine's Day party at Heart of Void!
> 
> *If you would prefer to cue up the songs on your own platform of choice instead of Spotify, here's the list, in order of appearance!  
> Overdrive - the Kompany Remix, by Space Laces and Kompany (recommend begin listening at 2:10 for prime effect)  
> Finesse Remix, feat. Cardi B, by Bruno Mars and Cardi B  
> Beautiful Crazy, by Luke Combs (recommend skipping to next song after first chorus)  
> Cheap Thrills, by Sia  
> Tell Me, by Groove Theory  
> Love in This Club (feat. Young Jeezy), by Usher and Jeezy  
> Siiko (Come, Let's Go), by Wiyaala (recommend skipping to All Mine when you reach the indicator in story for timing)  
> All Mine, by Portishead  
> Cannibal, by Kesha  
> Listen to Your Heart, by Roxette

_***_

_Overdrive – Kompany Remix, by Space Laces and Kompany_

_***_

The music thrummed over the jostling crowd, deep bass tones and crashing snare-type drums stirring the emotional currents to excited near-debauchery. The dancing shadow-balls among the rafters shifted gently through an ever-changing rainbow of muted pastel hues, matching their color-play to the oddly spaced musical-gaps in the current song. The chaotic construction of this particular piece had Erebus flicking the fingers of his left hand by his hip, pacing from the alcove-and-shelved wall to the bar once more, the nymph’s requested wine in his right hand.

“Here we are, little one.” A thin-stemmed glass floated on a cushion of mist to rest in front of the nymph, and her emerald eyes widened brilliantly as he deftly poured the pale-green-yellow wine in the deep bowl of the goblet. “Don’t forget to tip the jar; we’re gonna play a game tomorrow, the rest of the staff and I, and see who gets the pot.”

The nymph dropped a few drachma into the jar, the small cloth in the base of the thing preventing the loud clanking. She took her drink and left the bar, speaking animatedly to her companions as she returned to their table. The loud-crashing song faded with a few haunting piano notes, and Erebus turned to the pair of satyrs breaking from a kiss as the next song started up immediately on the heels of the former.

_***_

_Finesse – Remix, feat. Cardi B., by Bruno Mars and Cardi B._

_***_

“What can I get for you two?”

The taller satyr seemed ill-at-ease suddenly, and the more-slender one chuckled as he stared daringly up at Erebus’ face. “Don’t mind him, he was just expecting the cute drus tonight.” The chuckling turned to half-indignant chortling as the taller satyr flailed his fur-covered hands at his companion.

“Sorry to disappoint. We’re trying something out; every month, I give the staff the night off, and my wife and I run the place. All the tips in the jar there, we’ll play each other for them tomorrow before work. Just something different for a change. So, what can I get for you…?”

He felt Ath come back behind the bar, exchanging her empty tray for the one he’d prepped for the other large group a few moments before. She glided over to him, brushing her fingers over his shoulder as she left the bar once more; he nearly missed the back half of the satyr-pair’s order, but he managed to bind his lust enough to focus.

“Pelo and Marianna, you got it, gents.”

He made his way to the back counter, hands and strands of power working together to prep the two drinks simultaneously. He barely had to look at the cheat-sheet tacked to the wall over the small sink; he’d spent days learning the various drink recipes, but he wanted to be sure.

The wide-brimmed glass full of tart-sweet liquor, the top coated with a liberal band of salt, then the high-walled glass full of amber liquid that was _not_ tea, no matter how it looked or smelled: he sent both drinks coasting back on cushions of mist to the satyrs, acknowledging their surprise with a smile as he moved back along the bar to the next patron with an expectant look on their face.

_***_

_Beautiful Crazy, by Luke Combs_

_***_

The song shifted again, a soft-strummed guitar taking over the speakers all around the wide-open room. The raspy-voiced male started singing about his lover’s idiosyncrasies, how he admired her unpredictability.

Erebus smiled wider as he caught Ath’s eyes over the jostling crowd and milling bar-sitters. She smirked at him before turning back to the lounging patrons at one of the larger tables, her hand darting as she noted down the multitude of instructions for this coming order.

Erebus thought he’d never seen anything so precious.

He thought they might need to do this more often than once a month….

_***_

_Cheap Thrills, by Sia_

_***_

The song shifted again, odd little pulsing beats and a tinny female voice lisping through the speakers. Quite a few of the patrons dragged friends and lovers onto the dance floor, swaying and bouncing and – _what is it called?_ – grinding through the chorus and on into the second verse. Erebus couldn’t help but tap his bare foot, too; it really was a catchy song.

As the currents of energy swelled further under this particular song’s insistent beat, he was grateful he’d taken his fill of secretly-siphoned life-energy the night before. The double-shot of tequila had worked wonders for his temperament; he knew he’d be fine, even if things got more and more sexually-charged as the drinks kept flowing and the music kept pulsing through the air.

He settled back into the somehow calming routine of soft-voiced explanations of his presence behind the bar, quiet conversations with willingly-trusting godlings and daemons and others, power and fingers crafting and delivering drinks, the jar of tips filling slowly as the minutes drifted by….

_This is what it means to live…._

* * *

_***_

_Tell Me, by Groove Theory_

_***_

Ath finally got the group’s order down correctly; she made her weaving way back behind the bar, brushing her elbow along Erebus’ own as she crowded into place in front of the sink to drop off empty glassware. He chuckled, and she smirked up at him. His moon-bright hair was tied back in his low-slung queue, and she took a moment to ogle the soft-supple way his Void-crafted t-shirt hugged his shoulders tonight. She’d managed to talk him into wearing the shirt and pants only; after all, tips would be larger for sure with this Titan among gods parading around behind the bar….

He’d agreed, but only after she’d shifted into a matching set in her dark heather-grey.

_Anything to keep seeing this sex on a stick, honestly…. Mmmmmm…._

_***_

_Love in this Club, feat. Young Jeezy, by Usher and Jeezy_

_***_

Her King continued washing the various glasses and tumblers and goblets, his hips shifting every so often to brush hers. She tried to focus on swiping the quick-drying rag through containers as he settled them to the counter beside her, but every time she thought she could settle, he’d touch her softly again. More than half of her concentration was taken up trying to keep from dissolving into a melting puddle of panting breath; the other half of her intense attention was on her hands, relaxing as much as possible to keep from shattering the crystal and glass as she nearly lost control over and over and over again with every teasing touch he seemed to unintentionally throw her way with hips and elbow and even toes….

“Got another group, huh?”

She snapped back to reality from her lusty daydreams of taking him right on the bar after they’d closed up for the night, swallowing drily to find her voice. “Yep. And they’re being terribly picky with the drinks, make sure to read all the notes, ‘kay?”

“Of course; the pleasure of your handwriting is a delightful bonus, my love.”

He dropped a gentle kiss to the top of her head as he turned back to the clamoring drus and potamoi at the bar; she felt the soft emotional suppression he threaded into his words, calming the two immortals who had been on the verge of being too rowdy by half.

Ath could only think how lucky she was that this incredible creature was hers….

_***_

_Siiko (Come, Let’s Go), by Wiyaala_

_***_

She moved to the prep-counter to help him get the large group’s order done as quickly as possible. She recognized the current song, the beats and rhythms unique even amongst the eclectic assortment they’d put together for this particular playlist. She’d snuck the next song in right before they opened for the night, and if her plan was working out as it should….

“Hey, old man!”

“Arry?!”

Ath laughed and continued pouring and mixing various liquors to fill the order as Erebus left the counter, moving to intercept the Young Majesty as he came behind the bar to join them. _Perfect timing, kid._

_[[[Well, you did say wait for the African drums, and that’s exactly what those are….]]]_

_So literal._

“Arry, what are you doing?! We’re fine, go, have some fun or something!”

“Nah, I thought I’d try my hand at bartending; scootch!”

The Young Majesty bowled past her spluttering King; the chuckles and titters around the bar barely registered as her attention narrowed to the silent contact between her mind and Arry’s. His Self reminded her, obviously, of her husband, but there was a unique familiarity to him that somehow rang of silver; she reinforced her decision to talk to the kid soon about any changes in his power he might be experiencing, because it was obvious there was something more to him now, something that called to her in likeness and strange wonder.

_[[[Okay, so, what do you need to finish this order and run it before the song ends?]]]_

_Make up a Pelo, I’ve got this Brace-Bit, and that’ll do it._

_[[[You sure he’s gonna go for it?]]]_

_Kid, he won’t be able to say no. I’m his fuckin’ Queen…._

_[[[Rawr….]]]_

It took everything she had not to laugh as Erebus came around Arry’s far side then; she knew Arry could feel the flaring glare the King of Void was leveling at them both, but they refused to meet his eyes, focused on finishing the order to perfection.

“What. Is. Happening?”

“Nothing, honey; why don’t you go see what the gaggle of draids would like, we’ve got this….”

“You two…. You’re plotting something….”

“Now why on earth would you think that, old man?”

Her King snarled quietly, turning away from them with a grumble. “I can almost smell it….”

Arry broke, gripping the edge of the counter and heaving for breath with sudden tears highlighting his silver-swirled cheekbones. “ _Oh, gods…._ ”

Ath swept the tray onto her hand, steadying it with power as she rushed from behind the bar and away to that far table. She balanced the tray on an insubstantial pedestal of energy and began distributing drinks to the awed-murmuring group as the music shifted again, the piercing tones and brassy clamor calling to her, begging her to repay her King for their wedding dance….

_***_

_All Mine, by Portishead_

_***_

She finished delivering the drinks, ignoring the staticky crackles over the speakers, and threw the tray through her Void like a discus; Arry caught it, and Erebus whipped his head back and forth between the two of them, his queue flying out behind him like a racing horse’s high-held flag of a tail.

She held one hand out to him in request, her fingers beckoning, and he was there, taking her hand in his and sweeping her onto the dance floor as the milling crowd parted like water, like mist, like clouds and smoke for their passing….

* * *

He smiled into her own beaming face as he spun her to face him; she floated on her own power, her feet near his knees, as she molded her right hand over the bunched muscles of his left shoulder. His hands fit into the dip above her hipbones, forcing her into a supple-sway with him. Her left hand snaked beneath the base of his queue, cradling his neck until he brought his forehead down to meet hers.

There were no words; there was no reality but her.

They melted together as the quiet rhythm of the song she’d sneaked past him for this surprise faded under a sudden-blaring of trumpet-clarion and wavering-siren-song:

_All Mine!_

* * *

Arry slipped the tray onto the stack as Erebus and Ath melted onto the dance floor, their heads easily seen above the other couples moving slowly, sensually, together. Arry pointed toward a green bull-daemon watching him eagerly, crooking his finger to elicit the order.

“Scotch, on the rocks, man.”

“Coming up!”

He lost himself in the doing, then, trying to ignore the aching twinging in his heart.

_A week. A solid week, and nothing…._

_Dammit, kid, you fucked that shit up. What were you thinking, sending your crush an obviously over-done, desperate thing like that ink-painting!_

_Delarkes doesn’t need to know how messed up you are over them…. They’ve got plenty going on keeping up with Ath, there; and honestly, they’re way too old for you._

_Give it up._

_It’s never going to happen._

Wine poured into high-stemmed goblets of tinkling-shining crystal; heavy-bottomed mugs filled to the brim with yeasty-scented ale and mead; a few long-neck bottles of cheaper barley-beer and ginger-tonic passed over the counter-top.

And then the song ended, and Arry couldn’t quite swipe the tears away fast enough when he saw the heartbreaking tenderness Erebus leveled at his Queen as they made their way back to the bar.

_***_

_Cannibal, by Kesha_

_***_

He turned to the sink, fighting for composure, pretending to scrub a nonexistent stain from a pristine champagne flute.

“Arry, hey; what’s wrong?” The long-fingered hands that mirrored his own darted into the soapy water, pushing him aside and taking his place. His eyes reflexively snapped up in defiance; but what could he say?

_I’m pining for your oldest, dearest friend, and I’ve never even spoke to them, and I sent them a mind-dream ink-painting like an idiot, and they never sent a reply or came to see me like I all but begged, and I’m an idi-_

“Melarebus?”

With a breathless cry, Arry dove through the Void, running from panic, from hope, from that voice he knew in the depths of his Self and soul and heart….

Running….

 _Run_ ….

* * *

“Delarkes-what-the-hell-stop-sneaking-up-on-me-fukkitall!”

Erebus panted as he stared at his friend’s woebegone expression. Even their skin was grey….

“ _Kah-Fteh?_ ”

Dull-silver eyes met his, and then Ath was emerging from her Void beside her advisor’s slender form. Silver arms around black-shirted shoulders, and the two of them turned toward the door to the external foyer.

_[[[Erebus, I’ve got this. You man the bar, yeah?]]]_

**_Sure, lover, but…._ **

_[[[I’ll explain if and when I figure it out….]]]_

He could do nothing else, so he did as she’d said. He manned the bar.

And wondered what had broken his friend and the Young Majesty in so similar a manner, so much like how he and Tamoi had… nearly… fallen… apart….

_Oh, **bloody** hell…._

_…._

_He ran…._

**_Hell no, kid, you are not making the same fuckin’ mistake I did!_ **

**_Get your skinny ass back here, you hear me?!_ **

He knew the heavy push of power he sent back through his Void would echo wherever Arry had run to, even if he couldn’t quite reach to feel his heart’s-heir in the Young Majesty’s own silver-altered Void. He poured the next scotch carefully as he waited for the reply.

_[[[Give me a minute…?]]]_

**_One._ **

And one minute later, Arry re-entered this reality, huddled in the shadows of Erebus’ unoccupied booth past the corner of the bar.

Erebus barely spared the thought; he willed reality into the shape he wanted, and the music slowed to near-stillness as he walked calmly through his Void to take a seat a few cushions away from Arry. He watched Arry stare, open-mouthed and wondering, at the nearly-immobile shadow-balls near the rafters, the almost-imperceptible shifts of patrons dancing, drinking, nibbling on crackers and nuts….

Time near-stopped, or they were moving too fast through it; it didn’t matter which way it was:

The effect was the point.

“Arry, look at me.”

Fuschia eyes, tear-dark in the shadows.

“You know better than this shit….”

“I can’t, Erebus….”

“Why the ever-lovin’ hell not?!”

His heart’s-heir opened his mouth, but there were no words in that quiet-song, honey-shadow voice.

“Because there’s no fuckin’ reason at all why you can’t. Love is. You know that. You’ve been in my messed-up head, kid, you’ve seen what happens when you run…. Don’t do it. Right the hell now, promise your Self. Please, Arry. Make the right choice.”

_***_

_Listen to your Heart, by Roxette_

_***_

He flickered back through his Void, releasing the time-hold as he started to reach for the tequila for the next order. The music shifted, rattly piano and ethereal stardust rocking to their natural tempo as reality resumed its normal progression as if it had never paused.

The lyrics followed Arry as he left the booth and walked the long way through reality to the still-open door to the outside.

_I know there’s something in the wake of your smile._

_I get a notion from the look in your eyes._

_You’ve been through love, but that love falls apart:_

_Your little piece of heaven turns to dark._

_Listen to your heart, when he’s calling for you._

_Listen to your heart, there’s nothing else you can do._

_I don’t know where you’re going, and I don’t know why:_

_But listen to your heart, before you tell him goodbye…._

**_Listen well, kid._ **

**_Your heart’s singing loud as thunder for Delarkes._ **

**_You won’t fuck it up if you just follow where it leads…._ **

**_It’s Valentine’s Day after all…._ **

**_Love’s own day._ **

**_Take this chance…._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh-huh.... 
> 
> I ain't sayin' nothing else....
> 
> Next chapter: 
> 
> Listen to My Heart....
> 
> See you soon, little ones....


End file.
